Recently Lib Dem leader Ming Campbell commented on three things that Gordon Brown should be saying to George Bush;

“There are three things which should be on Gordon Brown’s agenda when he meets President Bush: renegotiation of the one-sided extradition treaty; the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre; and a negotiated withdrawal of British forces from Iraq.

“These should be the objective of a candid friend. The excessively subordinated relationship between the President and Mr Blair should be put to bed.”

I agree wholeheartedly with all three. The problem is – as Lib Dems will well remember from Harrogate, when Ming offered Brown “5 tests” – that if you list things out loud then what is not included becomes just as important.

Four obvious omissions are:

1. Action on global warming; and

2. The US should do more to get the peace process moving in the Arab-Isreali conflict. In fact to be more specific, the US should stop its one-sided support of Israel which is making a settlement impossible. It is noticeable that we Lib Dems have not debated this matter at our conference since the last general election, which seems odd as we pride ourselves for debating issues that others do not touch.

3. Not to attack Iran, and not to consider using nuclear weapons against Iran. Presidential candidates from both Republican and Democrat parties have refused to rule out the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Iran.

4. Other troublespots, such as Afghanistan, Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo, need to be discussed at least. There is a serious lack of action in these areas. Meanwhile, the south and east of Afghanistan appear to be lost, and difficult questions remain about how to protect the north from the Taliban.

Another mention needs to be made, too, about ‘extraordinary rendition’, which Ming has been very strong on but is not mentioned here. To be brutally frank about it, this process is one in which the US is happy to send suspected terrorists to countries where they know they will be tortured.

In effect, the US government now supports torture, as long as someone else is doing it. There has been little public debate about this in the US, yet this fundamentally illiberal behaviour has no democratic legitimacy and damages the reputation of the west.