Thirteen men of Asian appearance in their twenties and thirties were arrested by police investigating terrorism; the arrests were in north-west London; Bushey, Hertfordshire; Luton, Bedfordshire and Blackburn, Lancashire. Separate plans by al-Qa’eda terrorists to attack buildings in Britain were discovered after arrests in Pakistan, but the Home Office said no more than: ‘We are
The government is to post a leaflet called ‘Preparing for Emergency’ to all 25 million households in Britain; it recommends keeping indoors with bottled water, tinned food, a battery radio, spare batteries and a first-aid kit in case of terrorist attack. Mr Peter Mandelson, the Labour MP who was twice obliged to leave the Cabinet,
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, passed the tenth anniversary of his election as leader of the Labour party. During a Commons debate on the Butler report, he defended his decision to go to war against Iraq. He then turned his mind to a reshuffle. Mr Blair had said earlier that it was time to
Lord Butler of Brockwell published his report into the intelligence failures that led to the government claiming, in a dossier published in 2002, that Saddam Hussein possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and could deploy them within 45 minutes. Lord Butler described the dossier as ‘seriously flawed’ and criticised some of the language
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, asked by the Commons liaison committee if he would apologise for going to war with Iraq for the wrong reasons, said: ‘It has got rid of Saddam Hussein and he was a tyrant. I do not believe there was not a threat in relation to weapons of mass destruction.
A fine old row broke out over an unpublished book, Off Whitehall, by Mr Derek Scott, a former economics adviser to Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister. It detailed arguments between Mr Blair and Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A spokesman for the Chancellor called it ‘deliberate peddling of lies’ and did
David Westwood, the chief constable of Humberside, was suspended by the Home Secretary David Blunkett after an inquiry by Sir Michael Bichard found ‘fundamental and systematic’ flaws in Humberside Constabulary’s handling of intelligence; the force had deleted details of several accusations of earlier sexual offences by Ian Huntley, who killed the Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells
In local elections Labour did very badly, taking 26 per cent of the vote, compared with 29 per cent for the Liberal Democrats and 38 per cent for the Conservatives. ‘I am not saying we haven’t had a kicking,’ remarked Mr John Prescott, the deputy Prime Minister. In the European elections the UK Independence party
Britain went to the polls to elect members for the European Parliament, an exercise which the Liberal Democrats had portrayed as a ‘referendum on Iraq’. Thousands of postal ballot papers went undelivered in Bolton, and two men were arrested in Oldham after claims of fraud. London re-elected a mayor. ‘I am back playing the guitar
Minister Mr Iyad Allawi, a former Baathist who has lived in exile in Britain for decades; he was not the man America had chosen. Under the terms of a new draft resolution put to the United Nations, American and British forces would leave Iraq by early 2006, with the election of a new parliament. American
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said that political control of military action would pass to the Iraqi government after 30 June. Speaking at his regular monthly press conference, he said, ‘Let me make it a hundred per cent clear: after June 30 there will be the full transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi government.
‘The task of leadership when things are difficult is precisely not to cut and run,’ Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said at a press conference during a visit to Turkey. ‘We have the will, we have the leadership to do it, we will get the job done,’ he said, with reference to Iraq, but
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, apologised conditionally for crimes that British soldiers might have committed in Iraq: ‘We apologise deeply to anyone who has been mistreated by any of our soldiers.’ He and Foreign Office ministers denied having seen until very recently a Red Cross report of alleged Coalition abuses that was delivered to
Labour published a summary of its achievements, under the title Britain is Working. Mr Tony Blair celebrated the seventh anniversary of his becoming prime minister even more quietly than Lady Thatcher celebrated the 25th anniversary of her becoming prime minister. Dr Paul Drayson, who used to run PowderJect, a company awarded a £32 million government
Fifty-two former ambassadors, high commissioners and governors criticised Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, for supporting an American policy in Iraq that was ‘doomed to failure’. ‘The conduct of the war in Iraq has made it clear that there was no effective plan for the post-Saddam settlement,’ their open letter said. It also spoke of
A referendum on the proposed constitution for the European Union will be held, the government conceded; the next argument was over the timing. ‘Parliament should debate it in detail and decide upon it,’ Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, told the Commons, ‘then let the people have the final say.’ After meeting President George Bush
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said, in reaction to violence in Iraq, ‘Our response to this should not be to run away in fright or hide away, or think that we have got it all wrong. Our response on the contrary should be to hold firm, because that is what the vast majority of
After the resignation of Miss Beverley Hughes as immigration minister, Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, called a ‘summit’ at Downing Street to plan a ‘cross-government assault’ on failures in the system; MI5 was called in. It had been reported that Mr Blair had promised the Romanian Prime Minister he would lift visa requirements on
Seven hundred police made 24 simultaneous raids around London, seizing half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertiliser in Hanwell, west London, arresting two men in Uxbridge, one in Ilford, one in Horley, one in Slough and three in Crawley — all British Muslims of Pakistani descent, aged between 17 and 32. Mr David Blunkett, the
Liberal Democrat delegates at the party’s spring conference in Southport voted in favour of 16 year olds being allowed to appear in explicit pornography and of doctors being allowed to assist suicides. Mr Charles Kennedy broke into a sweat during his speech to the conference, following his sudden absence during the budget debate the week