The Labour party made six so-called pledges: ‘Your family better off. Your child achieving more. Your children with the best start. Your family treated better and faster. Your community safer. Your country’s borders protected.’ Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, made a speech at a party conference at Gateshead in which he said his relationship with the electorate was like that of a man going through a bad patch in his marriage during which crockery is thrown at him; ‘I’m back and it feels good,’ he added. The Prince of Wales is to marry Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles on 8 April in a civil ceremony at Windsor Castle, to be followed by a service of prayer and dedication, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Mrs Parker Bowles wishes to be known as HRH the Duchess of Cornwall; if Prince Charles comes to the throne, she would, it was said, be called the Princess Consort. The Greater London Assembly called on Mr Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, to withdraw remarks made to a reporter from the London Evening Standard, who had identified himself as Jewish, likening him to a concentration camp guard. A British man called Salahuddin Amin, aged 29, was arrested at Heathrow after flying from Pakistan, and charged with conspiring to cause an explosion between 1 October 2003 and 31 March 2004. Lloyds TSB launched an Islamic current account that conforms to Sharia prohibition of interest. A council bulldozer demolished a house built without planning permission near Spalding, Lincolnshire, inhabited by up to 70 Eastern European workers and their families. UK Coal said it could not fully meet a contract to supply 18 million tons in five years to Drax power station, Yorkshire. The Financial Times-Stock Exchange 100 index rose above 5000 for the first time since 31 May 2002.
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