Mr David Davis, Mr Kenneth Clarke, Mr David Cameron, Dr Liam Fox and Sir Malcolm Rifkind displayed what attractions they could muster as candidates for the leadership of the Conservative party at its annual conference in Blackpool. Boots the chemist, with 1,400 outlets in Britain, announced a merger with Allied UniChem, with 1,250 outlets in
Mr Tony Blair, in a speech at the Labour party conference, said, ‘The challenge we face is not in our values. It is how we put them into practice in a world fast-forwarding to the future at unprecedented speed.’ To combat antisocial behaviour he proposed ‘a radical extension of summary powers to police and local
The government decided to put off overhauling council tax by revaluing houses until after the next election. The National Health Service, despite unprecedented increases in government spending on it, went into the red for the first time in five years, with a deficit of £250 million, which Sir Nigel Crisp, its chief executive, pointed out
As the price of petrol rose above £1 per litre, a group of protesters calling itself the Fuel Lobby threatened to blockade motorways and oil refineries in protest against fuel duty. Many petrol stations ran out of fuel as motorists resorted to panic-buying. Loyalists rioted in Belfast for two nights, injuring 30 police officers, after
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, flew off to China and appeared at a press conference with the Chinese leader, Mr Wen Jiabao, where it was said that there had been a resolution of the dispute over European Union import quotas, which had seen 80 million items of clothing of Chinese manufacture piling up at
The Home Office proposed a new offence of having images from the internet of serious sexual violence and other obscene material; it would be punishable by three years in jail. The presumed murderer of an 11-year-old boy in West Lothian was found dead, hanged in his house; the man was on bail awaiting trial on
The news blackout that Downing Street had asked newspapers to impose about the whereabouts of Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, on holiday, supposedly for reasons of security, was broken by the man himself when he popped up at a VJ Day commemoration on Barbados, where he had stayed previously at a house belonging to
British Airways flights to and from London Heathrow were brought to a standstill for a day, and disrupted for days afterwards, by unofficial strikes by ground staff in sympathy with 700 staff sacked by a company supplying airline meals. Leaked documents showed that the Brazilian man shot dead at Stockwell in London by police seeking
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, floated all kinds of schemes to counter terrorists, with legislation to be introduced in the autumn, including the amendment of the Human Rights Act in respect of the provisions of the European convention on human rights. Involvement with extremist websites, bookshops or centres would be used as grounds for
The Irish Republican Army sent out a digital video disc in which Mr Seanna Walsh, once imprisoned for his deeds, read out a statement saying, ‘The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign …Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever.’ In a joint response Mr Tony
Four bombers escaped in London when the detonators they used failed to set off explosives they were carrying. The attempts, 14 days after the public transport bombs in London, were made on the No. 26 bus and on Underground trains at Warren Street, Shepherd’s Bush and Oval. A fifth bomb was abandoned at Little Wormwood
The fourth suicide bomber in the attacks on London, now found to have killed 56, was named as Jamal, formerly Jermaine, Lindsay, a Jamaican-born convert to Islam. The explosive they used was said to be unstable home-made acetone peroxide. Magdy al-Nashar, a British-trained biochemist whose flat in Leeds had been used by the bombers, was
More than 50 were killed and 700 injured when four bombs exploded in London on the morning of 7 July. At about 8.50 a.m. three bombs exploded in the Underground: between Russell Square and King’s Cross on the deep Piccadilly Line, with at least 25 killed; between Aldgate and Liverpool Street on the Circle Line,
The G8 leaders (of the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia) assembled in Gleneagles to discuss Africa, climate change and that sort of thing. The Live 8 concert for 200,000 in Hyde Park, intended to attract attention to poverty in Africa, passed off without incident. About 225,000 people walked through Edinburgh
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, gave a 30-minute speech to the European Parliament in Brussels, in advance of Britain’s assumption of the six-monthly presidency of the European Union, which began on 1 July. He described himself as a ‘passionate pro-European’ committed to ‘Europe as a political project’. He said, ‘Some have suggested I want
Spies will be sent out to inform upon people smoking in public places, including bus shelters and office doorways, under plans by Miss Caroline Flint, the minister for public health, who advocated ‘an intelligence-led approach to enforcing the law’. Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, borrowed £8.735 billion in May, the highest amount
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, flew to Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin, then to Berlin, Luxembourg and Paris, in preparation for the European Union meeting later this week. A bone of contention was Britain’s £3 billion rebate of its contributions to the EU budget, which President Jacques Chirac of France said Britain
Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, speaking in the Commons about the promised Bill to hold a referendum on the European constitution, said, ‘Until the consequences of France and the Netherlands being unable to ratify the Treaty are clarified, it would not in our judgment now be sensible to set a date for a second
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, on holiday in Italy, called for ‘time for reflection’ after the French referendum’s rejection of the proposed European constitution. ‘What emerges so strongly from the French referendum campaign,’ he said, ‘is this deep, profound, underlying anxiety that people in Europe have about how the economy in Europe faces up
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, unveiled a £1 billion scheme to help first-time buyers purchase shares of new homes. He also announced plans to ‘cut red tape’ by merging 29 regulatory bodies into seven. It was revealed that four out of ten prisoners released early end up back in jail after reoffending. The