The Fire Brigades Union announced a 48-hour national strike from 29 October, the first of a series of stoppages in pursuit of a 40 per cent pay rise. About 19,000 servicemen were put on alert to fill in for the firemen, with the help of 827 Green Goddess fire engines. Mr Bob Crow, the leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said that if absence of firemen meant that Underground stations would be more dangerous, his men would consider not working on strike days. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, made a speech in Belfast in the wake of the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly, asking the Irish Republican Army for ‘acts of completion’. ‘We cannot carry on with the IRA half in, half out of this process,’ he said. The IRA suggested in its reply that to disband was not possible. The government, in an exercise to test the waters, leaked the idea of removing 40 per cent tax relief on pension contributions from those earning more than £34,000. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals chose as its new chief executive Mrs Jackie Ballard, an anti-hunting campaigner and former Liberal-Democrat MP for Taunton. Mr James Strachan, who lives with Lady Blackstone, the arts minister, was recommended to take the post of chairman of the Audit Commission. Lady Longford, the biographer, died, aged 96. Q magazine gave its award for the best act in the world to Radiohead for the second year running. A Swaledale ram, called Brackenber Bronco, fetched £101,000 at an auction at Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria. Several earthquakes hit Manchester before lunch one day and before dawn on the next, the strongest being 3.9 on the Richter scale.
Ireland, in its second referendum on the matter, voted in favour of the Nice Treaty, part of which provides for the enlargement of the European Union by ten countries; the Irish vote was: Yes, 906,318 votes (62.89
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