Lord Butler of Brockwell published his report into the intelligence failures that led to the government claiming, in a dossier published in 2002, that Saddam Hussein possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and could deploy them within 45 minutes. Lord Butler described the dossier as ‘seriously flawed’ and criticised some of the language used by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, but declined to blame any individual or call for anyone to resign. The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, unveiled his latest ‘comprehensive spending review’. More than 84,000 Civil Service jobs in London will disappear by 2008 and £30 billion of redundant government property will be sold, hopefully realising ‘efficiency savings’ of £21.5 billion a year. Yet overall public spending will rise by £62 billion a year, an increase of 2.8 per cent in real terms. NHS spending will rise from £69 billion to £92 billion a year, and education spending from £63 billion to £77 billion. There will be a large expansion in free childcare, an extra £3.7 billion for the armed services and an extra £1 billion for scientific research. The Public and Commercial Services Union threatened to strike over the planned Civil Service job losses. It was reported that Tony Blair had to be talked out of resigning as prime minister in June by four Cabinet ministers and his wife Cherie. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, warned Mr Blair that he would have to answer to God for his decision to go to war in Iraq. Nine Afghans who hijacked a plane and flew it to London in 2000 to claim asylum were told by a court of ‘immigration adjudicators’ that they may stay in Britain. The government proposed legislation to jail people for 12 months and fine them up to £20,000 for acts of cruelty on any animal, insects included.
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