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Special forces accompanying British intelligence officers in a nocturnal visit by helicopter to territory near Benghazi were detained by the Libyan opposition before being taken off by the frigate Cumberland. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, told the Commons he had known of the mission but not of the operational details. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the Government would set up new enterprise zones. Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, criticised bank bonuses and the concept of being ‘too big to fail’. Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, received a £6.5 million bonus. Northern Rock made an annual loss of £232 million. A review by Tom Winsor recommended cuts to police overtime and allowances. The Royal Mail issued first-class stamps depicting Lord Voldemort.
The Duke of York was criticised for remaining a friend of a rich American who had been convicted of sexual relations with an underage girl. Sarah, Duchess of York, said it had been a ‘terrible, terrible’ mistake of hers to accept the man’s offer of £15,000 to pay one of her creditors. One day a Downing Street source said that there would be no ‘tears shed’ if the Duke resigned from his role as Britain’s trade ambassador; the next morning the Prime Minister’s official spokesman insisted that the Government was ‘fully supportive’ of his decision to stay on. The Queen is to make a state visit to the Republic of Ireland; the last monarch to visit Ireland was George V in 1911. Kate Middleton tossed a pancake outdoors in Belfast during a visit there with her fiancé Prince William.
The Liberal Democrat candidate came sixth, losing his deposit, in the by-election at Barnsley Central, the previous Labour MP for which, Eric Illsley, had been imprisoned for dishonestly claiming expenses. The Labour candidate won with 14,724, then came Ukip with 2,953, the Conservative with 1,999, the BNP with 1,463, an independent with 1,266 and the Lib Dem with 1,012, easily beating the Loony candidate. In a referendum, every county in Wales, apart from Monmouthshire, voted for greater powers for the Welsh assembly; the turnout was 35.4 per cent, of whom 63.5 per cent were in favour. The Office for Fair Access told universities charging the maximum fees of £9,000 that they would have to spend £900 a time on schemes to recruit students from poorer or ethnically diverse backgrounds. Howard Davies resigned as director of the London School of Economics, which had accepted a donation of £1.5 million from a foundation of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of the ruler of Libya. Cornflake manufacturers, fearful of oil residues in recycled paper, resorted to virgin trees to supply cardboard for their boxes.
Abroad
In Libya, forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi advanced eastward along the Mediterranean coast, attacking the oil port of Ras Lanuf. The government made air strikes against Zawiya. More than 200 Tuaregs from Mali were reported to have joined government forces. The United States, Britain and France made plans for a no-fly zone over Libya, although UN support seemed unlikely. Spanish unions announced 22 strikes affecting flights between Easter and the summer. Mattel closed its six-storey doll shop in Shanghai, opened in 2009.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran, lost his chairmanship of the Assembly of Experts, which selects the supreme leader, but remained chairman of the so-called Expediency Council, which moulds legislation. A riot by 2,000 prisoners added to anti-government unrest in Yemen. Tunisia dissolved its secret police. A thousand migrants in one night reached the Italian island of Lampedusa, nearer to Tunisia than to Sicily. In Cairo six Coptic Christian were shot by Muslims annoyed by protests at a church having been burnt down. Mexico City, which in a year has installed 6,200 security cameras in public places, announced plans for 1,800 more to supplement 100,000 in private use.
President Barack Obama of the United States allowed military trials for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to resume after a two-year gap. A Taleban car bomb killed more than 20 in Faisalabad in Pakistan. Saudi Arabia prohibited all outdoor demonstrations after protests by its Shia minority. Other Opec members followed Saudi Arabia in raising oil output after prices rose to their highest since 2008. The reopening of the Cairo stock exchange, closed since 27 January, was again postponed. Moody’s downgraded the debt of Greece to ‘highly speculative’. Roads around Athens were blocked by snow.
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