Howdy, great to see y'all

The Sun (U.K.) ^ | 11/19/03 | WILL BARKER, NICK PARKER and DAVID WOODING

[Pokey78]

PRESIDENT George W Bush had his feet up at Buckingham Palace last night at the start of his historic state visit to Britain.

The Texan, who likes to wear cowboy boots, jetted into Heathrow to be met by Prince Charles. And after a warm ‘Howdy’ he was whisked by helicopter to the Palace.

Air Force One landed at 7.25pm at an airport that had been turned into a fortress.

As the blue, white and silver Boeing 747 taxied to the airport’s VIP suite, dozens of uniformed police, many armed with machine guns, patrolled the area.

They were accompanied by scores of American secret service agents.

RAF fighters had escorted the plane on the last leg of its journey from Washington.

The President and his wife Laura walked down the steps from the plane, smiling and waving.

Mr Bush, 57, wearing a dark grey suit, white shirt and red patterned tie, walked with Prince Charles and the First Lady past a 19-man RAF guard of honour.

Cops had checked drains, roads and all suspicious-looking vehicles parked around the airport following an al-Qa’ida threat of car bombings.

The party transferred to Marine One, an armoured US Sikorsky helicopter, and flew to Buckingham Palace with an escort of two helicopter gunships.

They were greeted privately by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh.

Mr and Mrs Bush will be guests of the Queen at the Palace, where a state banquet will be held tonight. It is the first ever state visit by a US president.

Tomorrow Mr Bush and Tony Blair hold talks in Downing Street and on Friday the President visits Mr Blair’s Sedgefield constituency in Co Durham.

But security chiefs have curtailed the President’s movements amid fears of a terrorist attack and massive anti-war demos.

Only minutes before he left Washington, they called off his only major public appearance, a tribute to 67 British victims of the September 11 attacks.

The President was due to visit the memorial garden in London’s Grosvenor Square but agents told him the site was too exposed.

It would have been the nearest he got to well-wishers or protesters.

Despite a planned demo by up to 100,000 people tomorrow, an ICM poll showed that most Britons support the visit. Tony Blair’s official spokesman said: “This is the right time for President Bush to be visiting this country. The PM believes the majority of people welcome him.”

The Stop Bush campaigners will march past Parliament to Trafalgar Square.

London will be in the grip of its biggest ever security operation, costing £7million, throughout the visit.

Police will work 14,000 shifts, with more than 6,000 officers on duty at any one time to throw a ring of steel around Mr Bush.

They will be backed by 1,000 armed US secret service agents.

And the presidential party will travel in a bullet and bomb-proof stretched limo in a 20-vehicle convoy.

Mr Bush has even brought along a team of cooks to check his food for poison.

Chancellor Gordon Brown set the tone for the visit by speaking warmly of Britain and America’s “shared values”.

But Cherie Blair sparked a diplomatic row with America hours before Mr Bush arrived. The Prime Minister’s wife tore into the US leader for boycotting the new International Criminal Court.

Her outburst, before an audience of US academics, will embarrass Mr Blair.

[Mr. Mojo]

Mr Bush has even brought along a team of cooks to check his food for poison.

Not a job I'd want ;)

[Last Dakotan]

Tell me. What elected position does Cherie Blair hold?
And why should anyone care what she thinks?

[rewrite]

The cooks go with him where ever he goes....sop. Have ya ever had the food over there?.....It ain'tgood.

[Mr. Mojo]

Yeah, I know. I was merely (jokingly) suggesting that the method the cooks were using to test for poison in food was the old method -- tasting it. (If the taster/cook dies, the King knows not to eat it). Although in this particular case (with the cooks having to eat British food), they're screwed either way :)

[Alas Babylon!]

Well, I agree, and I think it also applies to a certain ex-president's wife. However, that didn't stop the voters of New York.

[lilylangtree]

W wearing his cowboy boots makes me proud. At least the man isn't wearing a tight-waisted girdle. He's wearing comfortable shoes and doesn't mind all the high-falutin' bluebloods running into each other. Go gettim W! Yer da man!