You may disagree with this goverment's policies in the Middle-East, or in the Great Game rematch in Afghanistan. You may think the NHS is badly run. You may think the police are being bogged down with needless paperwork. You may think that terrorists get off lightly. These are just disagreements over policy.

These are trivial matters next to this government's gross dereliction of duty where this country's vital interests are concerned. There is a duty of the British state to protect its citizens from an overweening foreign legal code - and its politically motivated prosecution to secure favourable headlines. This government has failed in its most basic duty.

Three men, David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby, are alleged to have invested in an Enron subsidiary, by means of selling Swap Sub, a vehicle to hedge Enron's interest in a third-party investment, at a knockdown price back to Enron, and thereby defrauded the investors of Greenwich NatWest, a Connecticut-based subsidiary and orriginator of Swap Sub. The money in question is $7.4 million. Chum-change in the grand scheme of things.

looking at the charge sheet, the transactions listed stink, but then you could make any set of complex SPV transactions look fraudulent. The problem is that three British Subjects are going to be carted off to try their luck under a foreign legal code and the US attourny-General doesn't even have to prove that there's a case to answer. The US's legal reach therefore extends to the UK, whilst the US refuses to extradite known Irish Republican terrorists.

These three are not the first to face trial in the US. Ian Norris, former chief executive of Morgan Crucible was also extradited to face charges of price-fixing. These extradition powers were meant for terrorist suspects. Given the US's treatment of such people, ironically the Human-rights act will probably ensure that muslims with excessive facial hair and a stash of P4 are the only people who will not face extradition under these powers.

How could any government do this to it citizens? I'm filled with spitting rage at the idea that British subjects could be spirited away to face trial in one of America's adolescent witch-hunts - without the British legal system getting its paws on Irish Terrorists in return, who have been hiding under the wing of the Irish Lobby in the 'states for decades.

What's just as bad: The Americans are doing great disservice to the principles of free trade that made them rich. In an attempt to remove dodgy-dealing from the system, they are destroying the greatest capital market in the world. Already you see "not for distribution in the US" on flotation documents. Companies refuse to settle through Crest in case they gain an American shareholder and thereby come under the purview of the SEC and sarbanes-oxley. This is even true of companies based in the US! The damage this will do to America and the world is huge. This poses more of a risk to Globalisation, surely the greatest force for peace, than any number of green-haired rock chuckers.

But the failure of the British Government to stand up for its interests and those of Her Majesty's subjects is what really excersises me. Just like the surrender over the rebate, Tony is so desperate to be loved that he'll give up any British advantage to secure "an lightly proffered laurel, the easy ungrudged praise". It indicates that this Government has a poor grasp of history and a weak attention to detail - all Britain needed to do was to insist that the treaty only came into effect on ratification by the U.S. Legislature. The United States is our friend and a powerful one. It is also a bully and needs standing up to from time to time. The Americans need to be reminded that wars they enter without us, they lose, unless the enemy is really, really small. They need to be reminded that they have few friends in the world. A warning to America - we are your Friend, but not uncritically. Britons are starting to really dislike the American state. How long before this descends into French-Style anti americanism? You may try these three Gentlemen, but at what a cost!

A warning to Tony. You are a venal twat and if I had my way, you'd be tried as a traitor and Hanged.