Mr Alastair Campbell was expected to resign as the director of communications and strategy at the Prime Minister’s office before the Labour party conference at the end of September. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, let it be known through friends including Lord Falconer of Thoroton that he intends to complete a third term. The
Dr David Kelly, a Ministry of Defence scientific expert on Iraqi weapons, was found dead near his home in Oxfordshire with a cut wrist and a container of pain-killers. Hours earlier he had appeared before the Commons foreign affairs select committee and, when asked if he was the main source for an article by Mr
Miss Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, said the government would build thousands of offshore wind turbines to supply up to a sixth of homes with electricity by 2010; the sites are in the Thames estuary, the Wash, and off the north-west coast between the Solway Firth and Rhyl. A government
Tony Blair insisted that weapons of mass destruction will still be found in Iraq, even though none has been discovered yet. A committee of MPs acquitted Mr Blair’s right-hand man, Alastair Campbell, of ‘sexing up’ a dossier about such weapons published in September 2002, but the committee said the claim that the weapons could be
The government set out some pretty rum plans for homosexual partnerships, securing tax benefits and severance by ‘divorce’, in a paper called ‘Civil Partnership: A framework for the recognition of same-sex couples’. After a last-minute procedural concession by the government, the Commons voted by 362 to 154 for an outright ban on hunting. A High
Mr Alastair Campbell, the director of communications at the Prime Minister’s office, agreed to give evidence about statements on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction before the televised Commons foreign affairs committee. Earlier Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, had told the committee that the second dossier on the subject was commissioned by Mr Campbell
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, tried to abolish the Lord Chancellor overnight by ukase, and to reassign his powers. But Lord Irvine of Lairg disagreed and was sacked. Lord Falconer of Thoroton was made Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, but it was discovered that the Lords could not sit without a Lord Chancellor,
Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told Parliament that only one of the five economic tests that would allow Britain to join the eurozone had been met; this was whether the City of London would remain Europe’s leading financial centre. But Mr Brown said that at the next Budget he would ‘consider the
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, faced an investigation by the all-party Commons foreign affairs select committee into claims that he had misled the nation about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He said this week: ‘Those people who are sitting there and saying, “It’s all going to be proved to be a big fib
Mr Peter Hain, the Secretary of State for Wales, who is the government’s representative to the convention that has published a draft constitution for the European Union, said, ‘If people don’t like what they get, they can vote against the government in the European elections next year’ (on 10 June). But the government shied away
Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, sent Cabinet ministers a 2,500-page dossier on the Treasury’s assessment of the five economic tests applicable in deciding if Britain should join the euro-zone. The ministers were then invited in one by one for ‘trilateral’ talks with the Chancellor and Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister. The
Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, resigned on the pretext that the Prime Minister had broken his assurances that the UN would be more involved in the reconstruction of Iraq. Mr Blair, she told the Commons, should start thinking about resigning himself and prepare for ‘an elegant succession’. Within half an hour, the Prime Minister
The Labour party suspended Mr George Galloway, an MP, from ‘holding office or representing the party’ while it investigated complaints that remarks he made during the war against Iraq might have constituted ‘behaviour that is prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the party’. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and Mr Alan Milburn, the Secretary of
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said before local elections that ‘the issue of reform of public services in health, in education, in criminal justice – this is the big challenge that this government and the Labour party faces’. His words were seen partly as a warning to the Left of his party and partly
The Daily Telegraph said that documents found in the ruined Iraqi foreign ministry in Baghdad by a Daily Telegraph reporter were said to discuss payments to Mr George Galloway, the MP for Glasgow Kelvin. Mr Galloway said: ‘I have never solicited, nor would I have accepted had I been offered, any financial assistance of any
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, in a statement to Parliament about the war in Iraq, said, ‘There is upon us a heavy responsibility to make the peace worth the war. We shall do so …with a fixed and steady resolve that the cause was just, the victory right, and the future for us to
An ICM poll in the Guardian found that 52 per cent approved of the war and 34 per cent opposed it; among Conservatives approval was 61 per cent, among Labour supporters 59 per cent and among Liberal Democrats 31 per cent. Mr Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, told Parliament that, with 45,000
That we will encounter more difficulties and anxious moments in the days ahead is certain,’ Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said in the Commons after four days of war against Iraq, ‘but no less certain, indeed more so, is coalition victory.’ On the seventh day of the war he flew, with Mr Jack Straw,
British troops joined the American assault on Iraq, after a Commons debate in which an anti-war motion was defeated by 396 votes to 217 (including 139 Labour rebels), and a government motion seeking ‘all necessary means’ to disarm Iraq was passed by 412 votes to 149, a majority of 263. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime
Britain joined the United States and Spain in tabling an amendment to the draft resolution before the Security Council of the United Nations, reading: ‘Iraq will have failed to take the final opportunity afforded by resolution 1441 unless on or before 17 March 2003 the Council concludes that Iraq has demonstrated full, unconditional, immediate and