London, July 18 (Reuters): Prime Minister Tony Blair was roundly mocked as a US poodle today after an off-the-cuff chat with President George W. Bush was accidentally broadcast.

Bush and Blair enjoyed a gossip over lunch at the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg yesterday, unaware that a microphone in front of them was switched on and their words would be relayed around the world.

Breaking with diplomatic formalities, Bush hailed Blair, his closest European ally, with the words: “Yo, Blair”. His solution to the West Asian crisis was that Syria should press Hizbollah to “stop doing this shit”. The British media pored over the text of the conversation, saying it cast Blair in a subservient role and showed the unequal nature of Britain’s much-vaunted “special relationship” with the US.

“Yo, Bush! Start treating our Prime Minister with respect,” the popular tabloid Daily Mirror said, joining others in seeing the US President’s greeting as disrespectful. The broadcast chat “reinforces the damaging public image of Blair as the US President’s poodle”, it said.

But most damaging to Blair was what commentators saw as his plea ? rebuffed by Bush ? to be allowed to visit West Asia to try to stop fighting between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

Blair suggested he could prepare the ground for US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, because “if she goes out, she’s got to succeed ... whereas I can just go out and talk”.

The Left-leaning Guardian said Blair “all but offers to carry her (Rice’s) bags”.

“He sounds less like the head of a sovereign government than a Bush official, waiting for the boss’s green light ? which he does not give,” the newspaper said. The Independent described the spurned offer to act as peacemaker as a setback for Blair.