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George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, outlined cuts of £11.5 billion from departmental spending for the tax-year beginning in 2015. David Gauke, a Treasury minister, gave a ‘firm commitment’ in a letter to backbenchers to introduce a transferable tax allowance of £750 between spouses and civil partners paying tax at the basic rate. This would benefit them by £150 a year at most, and not before the next election. Sir Mervyn King, retiring after ten years as governor of the Bank of England, was to be created a life peer. Mark Harper, the minister for immigration, broke his foot by falling off a table while dancing with his wife in a bar in Soho.
The Care Quality Commission named people alleged to have taken part in suppressing a report on its failings over the inspection of Furness General Hospital, where numbers of babies and mothers had died from 2008 onwards. They were Cynthia Bower, the former chief executive, Jill Finney, her deputy, and Anna Jefferson, a media manager. Two days earlier, the CQC had concealed the names on legal advice. Women with a family history of breast cancer are to be offered tamoxifen or raloxifene by the National Health Service, so the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence decided. A little-known Welsh education minister resigned.
Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition, attended a National Security Council meeting in Downing Street on Syria. A former officer with the Metropolitan Police Special Demonstration Squad said that he had come under pressure to find ‘any intelligence that could have smeared the campaign’ to find the people who murdered Stephen Lawrence in 1993. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said the allegations would be examined at the inquiry by Mark Ellison QC into police corruption during the original investigation and by Operation Herne, which is investigating Metropolitan undercover policing. Zaid al-Hilli was arrested in Chessington, Surrey, by police investigating the murder of his brother and sister-in-law, her mother, and a French cyclist in the Alps last year. The Queen’s horse Estimate, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, won the Gold Cup at Ascot.
Abroad
Edward Snowden, charged by the United States with disclosing secret surveillance programmes, flew from Hong Kong to Moscow airport en route for Ecuador, though Venezuela also offered him asylum. The United States confronted first China then Russia in demanding his return. Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy, was sentenced to seven years in jail for sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old prostitute, but remained free pending an appeal. Shares in China fell to their lowest since 2009 as the central bank tightened credit. People in Ireland were annoyed to hear taped conversations between Anglo-Irish Bank executives in 2008 planning to ask for a €7 billion bailout, knowing that much more would be needed later. EU foreign ministers backed a German proposal to postpone talks with Turkey on EU membership for another four months. In Albufeira, Portugal, 28 British people playing bingo for prizes of biscuits were arrested and fined for illegal gambling.
The Taleban launched a gun and bomb attack in Kabul, near the presidential palace, killing at least seven. Police removed a flagpole at the Taleban compound in Doha, Qatar, after the Afghan government objected to the Taleban flag flying. Talks between the Taleban and the United States were delayed. John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, held talks in Doha with the so-called Friends of Syria group, which includes Britain and ten other countries. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, aged 61, abdicated in favour of his second son, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, aged 33. A grey bird with a red head that was spotted in Phnom Penh was named as a new species, Orthotomus chaktomu, the Cambodian tailor-bird.
The life of Nelson Mandela, aged 94, drew towards a close. President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil proposed a referendum on reforms in the face of demonstrations sweeping the country. Floods in northern India killed 1,000 and drove 100,000 from their homes; a rescue helicopter crashed, killing eight. In Pakistan, gunmen attacked a hotel at the Himalayan base camp for Nanga Parbat, killing nine Ukrainian and Chinese tourists. Indonesia apologised for the smog in Singapore caused by fires from illegal clearance of forest for palm-oil plantations. Barnes & Noble, the US bookshop chain, saw its fourth-quarter losses rise to $118.6 million as sales of its ebook reader fell. – CSH
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