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Chris Huhne, the energy secretary until last year, and his former wife Vicky Pryce were each sentenced to eight months in jail for perverting the course of justice. Huhne’s sentence was reduced by 10 per cent as he had pleaded guilty, on the eve of his trial. Abu Qatada was returned to prison for allegedly breaching his bail conditions, which prohibit his use of mobile phones. The government went to the Court of Appeal to have a ban on his deportation to Jordan lifted. A bomb thought to have been planted by Irish republicans exploded as police responded to a call on the outskirts of Belfast, but none was hurt. Kenny Ball, the jazz-band leader who had a hit with ‘Midnight in Moscow’ in 1962, died, aged 82.
The Queen withdrew from the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey, attended a reception at Marlborough House but cancelled other engagements, a week after leaving hospital, where she had been monitored for symptoms of gastroenteritis. Professor Dame Sally Davies, the government’s chief medical officer for England, described growing microbial resistance to antibiotics as a ‘ticking time bomb’. Britain’s largest coal mine, Daw Mill in Warwickshire, closed, with the loss of 650 jobs but 56 million tons of coal remaining, because a fire 1,800 feet below ground continued to burn three weeks after breaking out. British manufacturing output fell by 1.5 per cent in January. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall visited Jordan.
Limiting a rise in benefits to 1 per cent until 2016 would have a ‘deeply disproportionate’ effect on children, according to a letter to the Sunday Telegraph signed by 43 Church of England bishops and backed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. In response, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said ‘I don’t agree that the way to get children out of poverty is to simply keep transferring more and more money to keep them out of work.’ Foster carers and families of armed services personnel were to be exempted from reductions in rental support for those with unused bedrooms. The Office for Budget Responsibility corrected a remark about it made by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, when he said, of a slowdown in growth: ‘They are absolutely clear that the deficit reduction plan is not responsible.’ The OBR replied: ‘Every forecast published by the OBR since the June 2010 Budget has incorporated the widely held assumption that tax increases and spending cuts reduce economic growth in the short term.’ Lady Gaga sued three Lloyd’s of London syndicates for not paying out on terrorism policies after a concert in Jakarta was cancelled following its denunciation by an Islamic group as ‘satanic worship’.
Abroad
In the Sistine Chapel, 115 cardinals voted for a new pope. In a referendum the people of the Falkland Islands voted by 1,513 to three to remain a British overseas territory. Uhuru Kenyatta was elected President of Kenya with 50.07 per cent of the vote, or 6,173,433 votes, against 5,340,546 for his rival, Raila Odinga, the prime minister. Nelson Mandela, aged 94, the former president of South Africa, spent a night in hospital. At least 51 people died of methanol poisoning after drinking homemade alcohol in Tripoli, the capital of Libya.
Seven hostages, from Italy, Britain, Greece and Lebanon, were murdered by Ansaru, a terrorist group aligned to al-Qa’eda, after being captured in February during a raid on a construction site in the northern Nigerian state of Bauchi. A group of 21 Filipino UN peacekeepers were released three days after being captured by the Martyrs of Yarmouk brigade on the Golan Heights. Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, was arrested in Jordan and taken to the United States for trial. President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran inaugurated a gas pipeline linking the two countries. Mr Ahmadinejad was rebuked at home for ‘sinful’ behaviour in embracing the bereaved 78-year-old mother of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
Unemployment in France reached 10.6 per cent, its highest since 1999. A ban on the sale of cosmetics developed through animal testing, no matter where they were made, came into effect throughout the European Union; in China, animal testing remained mandatory for some cosmetics. A New York City law banning the sale in food outlets of sugary drinks of more than 16oz was blocked by a judge who called it ‘arbitrary and capricious’. Police in Brazil said they had arrested a doctor near Sao Paulo in possession of six fake fingers with the fingerprints of colleagues whose absence she had concealed by hoodwinking a biometric machine. – CSH
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