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Are we Brits a "cowardly, unprincipled amoral and duplicitous lot"?

, under the headline "Brown the Betrayer", says the Prime Minister has given grounds for that view, because of the release of the Lockerbie bomber. They say the special relationship is "gone".

One has already suggested this is so.

But will it really make a difference?

There seems to be a gradation of anger. I am told the State Department was genuinely angered and disappointed by the decision, but there will be no comeback, partly because they accept the British government did not make the decision.

Diplomats are worried, however, about the hotter and stronger anger of elected politicians from New York and New Jersey, where many of the victims came from.

They will be watching the senate, where there will soon be an important vote on the , which will affect the supply of defence equipment to the UK. They view that vote as a bellwether.

One senior British diplomat told me: "There is genuine anger and disappointment but that doesn't translate into a crisis between London and Washington."

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