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David Cameron, the Prime Minister, declared that he would ‘focus on what matters’ after the Conservatives’ poor showing in the local elections brought accusations that pursuit by the coalition of such aims as gay marriage and reform of the House of Lords was alienating voters. On the eve of the Queen’s Speech he appeared at a tractor factory in Essex with Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats, who had done disastrously in the local elections. ‘I’m really sad,’ Mr Clegg had said of the results. Labour had gained an extra 823 wards, the Conservatives lost 405 and the Liberal-Democrat party 330, leaving it with the lowest number of council seats since its foundation in 1988. Plaid Cymru declined, the Greens grew, and Ukip polled 13 per cent of the vote in wards where it stood, but won only nine. The British National Party lost all six of its seats in contention. The Liberal Democrat candidate at Edinburgh Pentland polled fewer votes than Professor Pongoo, who campaigned as a penguin. Turnout was 32 per cent.
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Boris Johnson was re-elected as Mayor of London, with 1,054,811 votes, including second preferences, against 992,273 for Ken Livingstone, who said he was leaving competitive politics. Brian Paddick for the Liberal Democrats was beaten into fourth place by Jenny Jones for the Greens. In the London Assembly, Labour gained control of two seats: Ealing & Hillingdon and Barnet & Camden. Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Wakefield, Coventry, Leeds and Bradford voted against having a mayor; Bristol voted in favour and Doncaster voted to keep one. British scientists suggested that the flatulence of dinosaurs led to global warming 150 million years ago.
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Passengers arriving at Stansted airport faced delays of two hours. Hundreds of people found that HM Revenue and Customs often took more than 20 minutes to answer the telephone. Andrew Moss, the chief executive of Aviva, left the insurance company after a majority of shareholders voted against its annual remuneration report. Eight men of Pakistani background and an Afghan were convicted of running a child sex ring involving drink and drugs and girls as young as 13, at Heywood, Lancashire; the authorities were accused of not having brought prosecutions when evidence was produced in 2008 for fear of seeming racist. A tornado was seen between Bicester and Eynsham in Oxfordshire.
Abroad
François Hollande, the Socialist leader, was elected President of France with just under 52 per cent of the vote, defeating the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy of the UMP. ‘Europe is watching us,’ he told a victory rally. ‘austerity can no longer be the only option.’ In the Greek elections, most votes went to opponents of the EU-imposed austerity agreement, but the largest share for any party was won by the moderate New Democracy with 19 per cent, winning 108 seats in the 300-seat parliament; Pasok, the socialists, won 13 per cent and 41 seats; the far-right Golden Dawn party, whose emblem embodies a swastika, won 7 per cent, with 21 seats. The leader of New Democracy failed to form a coalition. Then it was the turn of the leader of Syriza, a far-left party that won 17 per cent and 52 seats, who wants to ‘tear up’ the bailout deal.
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‘We in Germany are of the opinion,’ said Angela Merkel, its Chancellor, ‘that the fiscal pact is not negotiable.’ Markets fell and so did the euro. Spain decided, against previous intentions, to bail out Bankia, its third biggest bank, formed in 2010 from seven amalgamated savings banks. Gas prices were expected to rise after Japan turned off its last nuclear reactor. Maurice Sendak, the author and illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are, died, aged 83. Nevada agreed to issue licences for cars designed not to have a driver.
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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others accused of plotting the attacks of 11 September 2001 appeared before a US military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay. The United States said it had foiled a plot hatched in Yemen by al-Qa’eda in the Arabian Peninsula to detonate a new version of the ‘underwear bomb’ that failed in 2009. In Yemen, an American drone killed Fahd al-Quso, wanted in connection with the bombing of the American warship Cole in 2000. A soldier died in an attack by demonstrators on a defence ministry building in Cairo; the government blamed the Muslim Brotherhood. Two days earlier 20 demonstrators died when they were attacked. Islamist gunmen broke up and burnt the shrine at the grave in Timbuktu of Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar, regarded as a saint. CSH
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