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On the eve of a speech by David Cameron, the Prime Minister, on the EU, Andrew Duff MEP, the leader of the Union of European Federalists, suggested that Britain could be offered second-class ‘associate member’ status in the EU. ‘If the British cannot support the trend towards more integration in Europe,’ Jacques Delors, the former president of the EU Commission said in an interview with a German paper, ‘we can nevertheless remain friends, but on a different basis.’ Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, said in an interview with the Guardian: ‘If every member state were able to cherry-pick those parts of existing policies that they most like, and opt out of those that they least like, the union in general, and the single market in particular, would soon unravel.’ Lord Rees-Mogg, editor of the Times, 1967-81, died, aged 84. Christopher Martin-Jenkins, the cricket commentator, died, aged 67. Tony Greig, the cricketer, died, aged 66.
Of the 1,223 people in the New Year honours, Bradley Wiggins was knighted for cycling and Ben Ainslie for sailing. Sarah Storey was made a dame for paracycling and Mo Farah was among Olympic athletes appointed CBE. Lord Coe, the Olympic organiser, was appointed a Companion of Honour, as was Peter Higgs, the man behind the boson. Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, Quentin Blake, the illustrator, Bernard Hogan-Howe, the policeman, and Martin Narey, now a ministerial adviser on adoption, were among those knighted and Margaret Beckett was made a dame. Cherie Blair was appointed CBE for services to women’s issues. Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, said: ‘I was offered a CBE but I don’t believe politicians should get honours.’ Harold Wilson, prime minister 1964-70 and 1974-76, is to be commemorated with a tablet in Westminster Abbey.
Martin McGuinness resigned as the MP for Mid-Ulster, for which he had been elected since 1997 without ever taking his seat; he will continue to be Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. Police said that a bomb under a policeman’s car in Belfast was put there by dissident republican paramilitaries. Local people were evacuated after a bomb was discovered near a police station in Tandragee, County Armagh. Police sought Ibrahim Magag, 28, of Somali origin, who absconded from a Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measure intended to prevent him from fundraising and travelling abroad. Muhammad Shahid Nazir, whose market song, ‘Very, very good, very, very cheap, / One pound fish, / Six for five pound, one pound each,’ reached 28 in the charts after exposure on YouTube, was deported to Pakistan when his student visa ran out.
Abroad
The United States fell off its fiscal cliff, which should have triggered tax rises and spending cuts, but the House of Representatives passed a bill on 1 January to raise taxes for those earning more than $400,000 and leave most other provisions unchanged for two months. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, stayed in hospital with a blood clot after sustaining concussion in December when she fainted. General Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded coalition forces during the first Gulf war, 1990-91, died, aged 78. The Hobbit took more money in the US than Peter Jackson’s previous most popular Tolkien film, The Return of the King.
Syrian government forces were reported to have pushed rebel forces out of the Deir Baalbeh district of the city of Homs, with 200 civilians killed. At least 22 died in a series of explosions in Iraq. At least 19 Shia Muslim pilgrims died in a bomb attack on a bus convoy in southwest Pakistan. Pakistan reimposed its block on YouTube, in force since September when a video about Mohammed was posted, after a government filter proved ineffective after a few hours.
Mario Monti, the outgoing Prime Minister of Italy, is to lead a coalition of centre parties to contest elections in February. At least 60 people died in a crush at a New Year firework display in Abidjan, Ivory Coast; ten died in a stadium crush in Luanda, Angola. There were widespread protests in India at the death of a 23-year-old medical student subjected to gang rape on a bus in Delhi; six men were charged with murder. The constitutional council of France struck down the income tax rate of 75 per cent for high earners introduced by President François Hollande’s Socialist government. Blood said to be that of Louis XVI on a commemorative gourd was found to have DNA resembling that of the mummified head of Henri IV. CSH
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