Mr Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, attempted to rush through Parliament legislation to put people suspected of terrorism under house arrest without trial. Mr Michael McDowell, the Irish justice minister, said that leaders of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland were also members of the Irish Republican Army’s seven-man Army Council: ‘We’re talking about Martin McGuinness,
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
Mr Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, proposed a points system, measuring desirable skills and suchlike qualities, to determine which immigrants from outside the European Community would be allowed to settle permanently in Britain. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) refused to return a man with alleged al-Qa’eda links to Belmarsh prison, where he had been
Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, was reported to have warned ministers that plans to allow the Home Secretary to put suspected terrorists under house arrest were likely to be challenged and ruled illegal by the courts. A man known as ‘C’, suspected of terrorist activity, was suddenly released; another man, whom imprisonment had made increasingly
The government proposed that foreigners suspected of terrorism and held illegally at Belmarsh prison should be let out but somehow put under restriction. Four British citizens held in America’s prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba were flown home and arrested. Mr Michael Howard, the leader of the Conservative party, said he sought a substantial reduction
The Conservatives published plans for spending if they were to win the next election. Presuming savings proposed by Sir Peter Gershon’s report for the Treasury, and incorporating new savings devised for them by Mr David James, they said they could reduce government spending by £35 billion, partly by cutting 235,000 Civil Service posts. Of this,
Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was jolly annoyed when Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, decided not to step down in his favour last year after all, according to a new book by Mr Robert Peston; ‘There is nothing that you could say to me now that I could ever believe,’ Mr
To relieve the survivors of the destructive wave in the Indian Ocean, British people donated £60 million in a week to the disaster emergency committee co-ordinated by the main aid charities. The Queen, who herself gave a substantial donation, said: ‘I have been impressed by the willingness of people in Britain to give generously.’ Mr
JANUARY Lord Hutton’s report declared that the government was not ‘dishonourable, underhand or duplicitous’. Mr Mikhail Saakashvili, who had led popular demonstrations in Georgia against Mr Eduard Shevardnadze, won the presidential elections. Hundreds of reformist candidates were banned from standing in the Iranian elections. Hope was given up of hearing any signal from Beagle 2,
Lord Butler of Brockwell, who had headed the inquiry into intelligence about Iraq, accused Mr Tony Blair’s administration of ‘bad government’, being unchecked by Parliament and free to bring in a ‘huge number of extremely bad Bills, a huge amount of regulation and to do whatever it likes’ with an eye to the next day’s
The Army Board approved a scheme to amalgamate all 19 single-battalion regiments into ‘super regiments’. The BBC is to get rid of 3,000 staff in three years to save £320 million. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution called for a ban on fishing in a third of British waters. The Department of Health told Britain’s
Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, juggled his black hole and his Golden Rule in a pre-Budget statement. Mr Oliver Letwin, the shadow Chancellor, said he would ‘expect’ the Tories to make at least ‘one specific tax pledge that we will fulfil in the first Budget’. Mr Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn
In the Queen’s Speech, the government announced 32 Bills: one to impose ‘voluntary’ identity cards and then compulsory cards; another to create a Serious Organised Crime Agency; a Counter-Terrorist Bill that might allow trial without jury and the admittance of evidence from tapped telephones; a Discrimination Bill to extend the rights of disabled people, and
A white paper proposed a ban on smoking in restaurants and pubs that serve hot food. It also proposed the banning of television advertisements for ‘unhealthy’ food before 9 p.m., but this would be ‘ineffective and disproportionate’ according to the television regulators, Ofcom. The Hunting Bill was amended in the Lords to restore the government’s
The Saturday 17.35 Paddington to Plymouth train, operated by First Great Western, was derailed when it hit a car on a level crossing near Ufton, just before Aldermaston, Berkshire; the car driver and train driver and five passengers were killed and 150 of the 300 aboard injured. Three soldiers of the Black Watch were killed
The people of the north-east of England voted in a referendum on whether they wanted a regional assembly; they didn’t. Forty-seven Labour rebels voted for a complete ban on parents’ smacking when the Commons passed a Bill limiting chastisement of children. Mrs Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, told the Commons during the
An order laid before Parliament by Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, will enable juries to be told of defendants’ previous convictions if they touch on ‘an important matter in issue’, such as ‘a propensity to commit offences of the kind’ alleged. The Lords voted 322 to 72 to reinstate the government’s original Bill on
The United States asked for British forces to be sent from the south of Iraq around Basra to positions further north to cover for American troops required to attack Fallujah, where insurgents have been in control; the government decided to send soldiers of the Black Watch. They would come under American command but retain British
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, coined the phrase ‘opportunity society’ to describe his objective in reforming social services and policing; National Health Service spending on independent providers of diagnosis and treatment would rise ‘significantly’, and specialist schools would become ‘near universal’. He also said, ‘We must change the culture that can write people off
Mr Michael Howard, the leader of the opposition, speaking at the Conservative party conference, summarised Tory plans in ten words: ‘school discipline, more police, cleaner hospitals, lower taxes and controlled immigration’. Neither he nor Mr Oliver Letwin, the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, would make specific promises on tax, on the grounds that former promises