Lord Levy's assistant at Foreign Office fails to shine

The single unladylike expletive used by la Beckett on being offered the job to sit in the next office to the midget karaoke King, the Lord Levy, Tony Blair's "personal envoy" in the Foreign Office, sounded round the world, somewhat like the shot at Concorde.

Since then la Beckett has been virtually silent - or to those fortunate enough to catch her interviewed on Radio and TV , unintelligible.

The Guradian today perform a neat and nasty hatchet job on the erstwhile traveller - whose flying exploits hitherto have been met with query and scorn. Alas, she appears grounded and gormless having left behind her the stinking mess of the EU Emissions Trading System which is rapidly falling apart.

It is evident that she has, however left the interesting developments in the Middle East to the clever little chap in the next office, who probably can read maps and also knows the language they speak over there. Anyway Condi and her friends in the Holy Land says she's doing a terrific job. They say she and Leo must pop over for a nice holiday when all this trouble has qietened down - Eilat in the winter is really nice. although trips to Petra are on hold just at present apparently.

Questions asked about the performance of Beckett

· Foreign secretary too inexperienced, say critics
· Knowledge of Middle East affairs causes concern

Ewen MacAskill and Will Woodward
The Guardian Tuesday August 1, 2006

"The grumblings within the Foreign Office are getting louder. Officials complain the Israel-Lebanon war has brutally exposed the inexperience and inadequacies of Margaret Beckett as foreign secretary. ...."

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A relief to know that John Prescott will be in charge whilst Tony is off with the boys, enjoying himself at Cliff's beach shack after meeting all those interesting people at George Schultz's modest place in sunny San Francisco.