Before an audience that included Secretary of State Colin Powell, Senator Jesse Helms, and Ambassador Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick, Reich gave a strange and pugnacious speech.

Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex Features Ken Livingstone's stern, pugnacious speech to the Labour conference yesterday and his publishing today of a cheaper alternative to Boris Johnson's latest inflation-plus public transport fares package have not demonstrated any dazzling vision for the capital's future.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg gave an unusually pugnacious speech to municipal union leaders here today, teasing them for holding their annual retreat outside the city, suggesting they were responsible for this year's layoffs and warning them not to expect raises unless they agree to money-saving concessions.

He made banking issues the subject of a pugnacious maiden speech in the Senate, which - unusually - was interrupted extensively by Senators such as Reed Smoot, Nelson Aldrich and Charles Curtis, who did not appreciate his attack on the power of the larger banks.

The sad fact is that the president of the secessionist "Somaliland", supported by his warmongering politicians in Hargeisa, has sanctioned this cowardly attack following his pugnacious speech in front of the enclave's parliament in response to the establishment of Darwishland state in Talex.