It was the last stop on George W. Bush’s “Farewell Europe” tour and we had pulled out all the stops. Half of Westminster had been coned off (the other half had been arrested). Gordon and Sarah had hosted what George W. would no doubt call “a food thingy” with top-flight historians.

The Queen had done her bit and now there was to be a joint press conference in the incredibly ornate Locarno Room at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. To walk into a room like this is to understand what Empire does for a country. The chandeliers hang with intent to impress from the painted vaulted ceiling, the doors are the height of three men and the gilt (the guilt!) is out of this world. The two men were flanked by four flags and eight VIPs each. We have not seen anything this painfully OTT since Barbra Streisand came to the O2 . I only regret that they did not have any costume changes.

There is no chemistry. There was no “Yo Brown” moment. Our Prime Minister was as formal as a dinner suit. He thanked Mr Bush for his friendship several times, each time turning to him from his waist (it looked a bit rusty) and executing a weird little bob. It was sub-Japanese. At one point George W. lightly touched the Prime Minister’s arm and Gordon flinched.

George W. Bush, when he finishes with his “presidential thingy”, may be thinking about doing a one-man show. Yesterday we had a taste of George W. Unplugged. As he stumbles around the English language, he creates real suspense. It is rather riveting. He was even interesting when he was listening to Gordon, a permanent half-smile on his lips. What, we wondered, was the joke? George began with a bit of a travelogue, a kind of postcard home, perhaps to his dogs Barney and Miss Beazley (look, this is the kind of thing Americans do). “This is, uh, this has been a good trip. Some are speculating this is my last trip. Let them speculate! Who knows? Thank you Gordon and Sarah. Thanks for calling together the historians. Great Britain produces great, great historians! The food was good too!”

History is weighing heavily on George W. He has thought about how historians will see him and it will be as a man of peace. He is full of truisms such as: “The march to democracy is never smooth!” He scolded G8 leaders that they must honour their pledges for donations to Africa. “We expect you to be more than pledge-makers, we expect you to be cheque-writers!” Also, he has changed the name of Pakistan to “Pak” as in “the Pak Government”. I don’t know why, perhaps just because he can.

History will also see him as a diplomat. “One of the things I will leave behind is a multilateralism to deal with tyrants so problems can be solved diplomatically.” This is his strategy with Iran and North Korea (he didn’t mention Iraq at this point). He thinks that Pyongyang is impressed. “If I were the North Koreans and I were looking at this I would say, ‘Uh-oh, there are coalitions comin’ together!’ ” He talked a lot about Iraq and, of course, history. “History will judge the tactics,” he said, before launching into the kind of speech you would make to St Peter at the Pearly Gates (Yo St Peter!): “Removing Saddam Hussein was not wrong. It was the right thing to do for our security, right thing to do for peace and the right thing to do for 25 million Iraqis.”

What we need now is courage and patience. Will “freedom” transform the Middle East? “Some would say freedom is not a universal value. Some would say that maybe it’s only Western people who can self-govern. Maybe it’s only, you know, white-guy Methodists who are capable of self-government. I reject that notion! I think that is the ultimate form of political elitism!”

White-guy Methodist? Is that anyway to talk about yourself? Perhaps he greets himself in the mirror every morning with a hearty “Yo White-Guy Methodist!” Indeed, perhaps that will be the title of his autobiography – or his one-man show.

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