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Party leaders mercilessly launched 100 days of campaigning before the general election on 7 May. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said he would reduce the annual maximum household receipt of welfare to £23,000 from the current limit of £26,000. Ed Miliband announced a ten-year plan for the National Health Service, but Alan Milburn, a former Labour health secretary, said: ‘You’ve got a pale imitation actually of the 1992 general election campaign and maybe it will have the same outcome.’ Amjad Bashir, a Ukip MEP, switched to the Conservative party, upon which Ukip said he was being investigated over ‘unanswered financial and employment questions’, allegations he denied. Peers dropped an attempt to bring the so-called snoopers’ charter into law before the general election. Dozens of Tory MPs said they would vote against a law to enforce the sale of cigarettes in plain packets.
The British economy grew by 2.6 per cent in 2014, the fastest pace since 2007, though, in the last quarter, growth slowed to 0.5 per cent. Waitrose said it would have 2,000 vacancies at 14 new shops and expanded stores. EDF said it would cut gas prices by 1.3 per cent, less than the other big-six energy companies. More than 1,400 Land Rovers, Minis and Jaguars began to be unloaded from the Hoegh Osaka, grounded in the Solent since 3 January.
Sir Robert Owen, the High Court judge, began the inquiry into the poisoning with polonium of the Russian Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Pauline Cafferkey, the Scottish nurse who in December was found to be suffering from Ebola after returning from Sierra Leone, was discharged from hospital in London, having fully recovered. Leon Brittan, a home secretary under Margaret Thatcher, and later a European commissioner, died, aged 75.
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