Allies of Mr Duncan Smith insist he has formed a balanced team that includes MPs who backed Mr Clarke and Mr Portillo for the leadership.Mr Duncan Smith had intended to make moderate Damian Green (education) and Liam Fox (health) his first Shadow Cabinet appointments to highlight that public services are his top priority. But the terrorist attacks in America and the recall of Parliament last Friday forced him to fill first the foreign, home affairs and defence posts.. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said that British intelligence is pointing the finger of blame at Osama Bin Laden for last week’s terrorist outrage in the United States. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said that British intelligence is pointing the finger of blame at Osama Bin Laden for last week’s terrorist outrage in the United States.
He said: “Six days after this terrible catastrophe in New York it is now clear from our own intelligence assessment that Osama bin Laden and his organization are plainly the prime suspects for complicity and involvement in this catastrophe.”He also praised President George Bush’s handling of events. “President Bush has shown huge statesmanship, and people are reassured by that, that there is resolve on both sides of the Atlantic but there is also a clear sense, if we are to win this war against terrorism, it has to be based on very very careful analysis,” he said.Mr Straw also said that any decisions would be made in a “cool, measured and intelligent way” and described the current situation as the most serious since the Cuban missile crisis.. Tony Blair declared yesterday that Britain was “at war” with terrorism when he said that between 200 and 300 Britons had probably been killed in last week’s attacks on the World Trade Centre.Interviewed on the American television channel CNN, the Prime Minister gave a clear hint that British troops would be involved in the American response, saying Britain would play a “full part” in the action. He said the “right response” was still being devised, but warned there would be “difficulties along the way”.Unlike President George Bush, Mr Blair had avoided using the word “war” in his initial reaction to last week’s events.

Yesterday, however, he said: “Whatever the technical or legal issues about the declaration of war, the fact is that we are at war with terrorism. What happened on Tuesday was an attack not just upon the United States but upon the civilised world.”Speaking outside 10 Downing Street later, Mr Blair said: “There are many, many British casualties, so we have a direct interest in this. This is a situation in which we have got to be prepared to act. We will act in a calm and measured and sensible way.”Despite his tough language in public, Mr Blair is understood to have counselled President Bush against a knee-jerk military retaliation when they spoke on the telephone last week. The Prime Minister believes that assembling the widest possible coalition of support for military action willimprove the prospects of international action to eradicate terrorism in the longer term.Yesterday, Mr Blair praised the President’s “calm and measured” reaction to the crisis, saying it had been “absolutely right”. He played down suggestions that France and Germany might not join Britain in giving solid support to America.

Mr Blair spoke to Jacques Chirac at the weekend ahead of the French President’s visit to Washington tomorrow. On Wednesday, Mr Blair will meet Gerhard Schr?, the German Chancellor, in Berlin.Mr Blair said: “I think the whole of Europe will stand with America on this because people know that what happened was not just aimed at America. It was aimed at all of us.”The Prime Minister’s description of the fight against terrorism as a “war” drew criticism from the former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Paddy Ashdown. He said: “In war, nations act crudely, swiftly and without too much calculation about the collateral damage done to innocent civilians. In so-far-as you use that word [war] you create that expectation.”Charles Kennedy, his successor as Liberal Democrat leader, said his party would not give a “blank cheque” to Mr Blair to support action by America “We have got to have a measured response,” he said.