Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a speech at the Labour party conference that pointedly made reference to ‘Labour’ 20 times and never to ‘New Labour’; the party needed ‘not just a programme but a soul’. His performance was seen as a move to succeed Mr Tony Blair as Prime Minister. In his own speech, Mr Blair held out the prospect of a third Labour term. ‘I can only go one way. I’ve not got a reverse gear,’ he said. ‘After six years, more battered without, but stronger within. It’s the only leadership I can offer.’ Earlier, asked in a television interview whether he would have done anything differently in going to war against Iraq, he said: ‘Nothing. I would have done exactly the same.’ In his conference speech he said that ‘the security threat of the 21st century is not countries waging conventional war’ but ‘the threat is chaos. It is fanaticism.’ The seven-minute ovation he received was slightly undermined by subsequent debates on Iraq and foundation hospitals. The duty on petrol went up by 7p a gallon. Mr Mike Fuller was appointed Chief Constable of Kent, the first black man to hold such a position. The proportion of Catholics in the Police Service of Northern Ireland rose from 8.9 per cent to 11.7 per cent, but a survey found that 72 per cent of those questioned were deterred from joining the force by fears of intimidation. Postmen in London went on strike for 24 hours. The Royal Mail is to be fined £7.5 million by the regulator Postcomm for failing to meet targets for prepaid business-post services. Coffee Republic, the coffee-shop chain, reported losses of £9 million and said it was removing sofas from its branches, which have been reduced from 107 to 72. Robert Palmer, the singer, died, aged 54.
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