GEORGE BUSH is not the villain of Gleneagles, whatever the marchers’ banners in Edinburgh say. He has shifted the US position on African debt. He has even moved at bit on climate change — harder for him, more surprising and arguably more important.

He has also called the EU’s bluff in saying that farm subsidies perpetuate Third World poverty, and hinting that if the EU lifts its subsidies, he could scrap US ones. This is a marvellous comic stroke. It will probably have no immediate effect but has set the EU back on its heels. Taken together, Bush’s offers are not generous. But they are still near the limit of what he can deliver — perhaps beyond.

They represent a favour to Tony Blair, except that, it seems, Bush would die rather than say so. The Prime Minister might well feel aggrieved that they have not been offered in a way that allows him to make capital from them. Blair might well have winced to hear Bush say yesterday that their relationship was not one of “quid pro quo”, given the price he paid at the election for supporting the US in Iraq.

The US tone in the run-up to Gleneagles has been stubborn. It may yet concede ground. But it will be hard for Blair to extract something that looks like a resounding success from the summit, which he has anointed the crowning event of his year.

That is not to say there will be no deal. After marathon talks between G8 officials this weekend, it looked as though the countries may manage by the end of Friday to agree something on climate change which is not vacuous.

That should not be mocked, however slight what emerges. Almost anything counts as an achievement. This is a more difficult problem for all of them to tackle than African debt — particularly for the US.

It is more expensive. But unlike African debt, it is not just an issue of what money countries are prepared to give. It is politically troublesome, because curbing carbon emissions demands changes in energy production, in use of cars and in taxes which will be contentious and unpopular.

Bush is routinely pilloried in Europe for having refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol setting targets for carbon reduction. This is unfair, and a caricature.

We are all the better for the vigour with which the US economy has been running. We would be poorer if it slowed down. Bush is entirely justified in pointing out that if the US was forced to cut emissions as quickly as Kyoto demanded, its economy would suffer. Much of Europe, after all, found it easy to comply with Kyoto because of the slump in the use of coal, and the rise of gas. The US, with its huge dependence on road transport, was never going to find it easy.

Critics in Europe often seem wilfully blind to the sheer size of the US, and the inevitable reliance of its commerce on the network of highways. It is easier and more amusing, they find, to sketch it as a nation of people too fat and lazy to walk, ferrying obese children around in sports utility vehicles.

That is not to say that the US Government could not do a lot more to change its citizens’ collective behaviour. But the suggestions about improving the efficiency of transport and power stations that Bush has made are not empty. They also show that the Bush Administration is seriously thinking about the issue. That marks a big change from a year ago. It suggests Washington has become convinced that some contribution to the problem is in its own interest — and perhaps even feasible.

This is a more dramatic change than the US’s participation in African debt relief, where it has long agreed on the aims, just not the means.

Bush is right to want to find a way of taking part in action on climate change that does not damage the US economy. The world should be grateful.

But Blair could be forgiven some pique that Bush’s determination to fight his own corner means he will not give the Prime Minister any credit for any concessions he might eventually make.

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