BRITAIN’S Ambassador to Italy has heaped fresh embarrassment on Tony Blair by calling President Bush “the best recruiting sergeant” for al-Qaeda.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office swiftly distanced the Government from the remarks of Sir Ivor Roberts as Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, decided whether to discipline the veteran diplomat.

Sir Ivor told a private Anglo-Italian conference at the weekend that “if anyone is ready to celebrate the re-election of Bush it is al-Qaeda”.

His words were delivered to a think-tank which was covered by so-called Chatham House rules, meaning that all speeches were supposed to be off the record.

But the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera decided the remarks about the terror network headed by Osama bin Laden were so explosive that the rules should be breached.

It also quoted the ambassador saying, at the conference near Siena, that the Bush Administration was subject to “conditioning” and “pressure” from Israel and “the Jewish lobby”. Senior diplomats were stunned at the remarks, even though they were made under what he assumed to be the protection of anonymity rules.

One said: “He was clearly stitched up, but should he have been saying anything like this?” Another said: “A lot of four-letter words are swirling around about Sir Ivor.”

The Foreign Office said: “We are not going to comment on what he said other than to say it is not government policy.”

Asked whether Sir Ivor would be sacked, a senior diplomat said: “People at the top are deciding what should be done. But he’s 58, has a fine record and made a mistake.”

Sir Ivor is a former ambassador to Belgrade and Dublin. Corriere della Sera suggested that his remarks showed a growing mood of self-criticism and second thoughts over Iraq within the Blair Government.

The row came as the Labour leadership launched efforts to avoid an embarrassing vote for Mr Blair over Iraq at next week’s party conference.

It acknowledged that it would be unable to avoid a debate but hopes this can be forward-looking and framed around the general picture in the Middle East.

Although there have been a series of emergency resolutions from constituency parties calling for the immediate withdrawal of British troops, this is not a priority for the big trade unions, whose voting muscle will guarantee motions on public service reform, manufacturing industry, pensions and employment rights.

Party managers say there are more likely to be rows in debates on rail renationalisation and council housing than about Iraq. “We will not duck a discussion on the war, but we believe it will be about the future, not what has already happened,” a spokesman said.

At a meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee yesterday, Mr Blair shrugged off questions about Iraq, saying that the key issue now was to deal with a security issues and combat terrorism.

Mr Blair’s conference speech next Tuesday will put Iraq into a context of a progressive foreign policy which has doubled aid budgets, as well as being in the international vanguard on African development and trade reform. However, he is expected to concentrate on Labour’s third term agenda for “hard-working families”.

The conference slogan, “a better life for all”, will also seek to turn attention away from the divisions caused by Iraq and back to the home front.

The diplomatic gaffe came after Mr Blair met Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi Prime Minister, in London and only days after it was confirmed that Mr Straw and Sir David Manning, Mr Blair’s former foreign policy adviser, had warned him before the war of the problems that would follow the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

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