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Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, lent his support to a series of amendments to the government’s Health and Social Care Bill that he said would limit its adoption of competition and privatisation. The British Medical Association said that two thirds of members had approved some form of action over plans to make them contribute more to their pensions. Len McCluskey, the General Secretary of Unite, called for industrial disruption during the Olympics. Police and bailiffs removed tents from a protest camp at St Paul’s Cathedral set up on 15 October. The BBC found that thousands of illegal immigrants from India were living in sheds, particularly in Slough and the London borough of Ealing. The House of Commons sought a cheaper alternative to the £30,000 annual upkeep for 12 fig trees in Portcullis House.
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There was ‘a culture at the Sun of illegal payments’ made to ‘a network of corrupted officials’, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers of the Metropolitan Police told the Leveson inquiry. A day earlier, Rupert Murdoch had overseen the printing of the new Sun on Sunday. When Rebekah Brooks was editor of the Sun, it was learnt, the Metropolitan Police lent her a horse, which she kept for two years. Undercover reporters from the Daily Telegraph found three clinics that offered abortions to women who said they were unhappy with the sex of their baby. Christopher Tappin, a retired businessman, was held in El Paso jail, Texas, after being extradited on charges of trying to sell batteries for use by Iran in Hawk missiles; ‘If I was a terrorist, I would have more rights,’ he said. Thirteen skippers from Shetland and four other men were fined a total of £720,000 for fraudulently landing more fish than the legal quota.
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HSBC’s UK profits rose 17 per cent to £1.5 billion. Lloyds Banking Group made a loss of £3.5 billion, having set aside £3.2 billion to deal with claims for mis-selling payment protection insurance. Barclays was told that the government would bring in retrospective legislation to stop its scheme to avoid paying £500 million in tax. Gordon Thompson, aged 33, pleaded guilty to starting a fire which destroyed Reeves furniture shop in Croydon during last August’s riots. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said that 49,000 people with metal hip implants should have them monitored annually for failure. Dozens of farms were infected with Schmallenberg virus, spread by midges from Germany, which causes birth defects in lambs and calves.
Abroad
Dozens of people continued to be killed daily as Syrian government forces attacked protestors and shelled civilian areas of cities such as Homs. A referendum on the constitution was said to have been met with approval by 89.4 per cent; the United States called it ‘laughable’. The political leadership of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas moved from Syria to Egypt and Qatar. The European Union froze Syrian central bank assets. A wounded British photographer, Paul Conroy, was evacuated from Homs, but his convoy was caught in fire, with some fatalities.
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A car bomb killed at least nine in Jalalabad and several more died in protests against the incinerating of copies of the Koran by US forces at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. An email from the American security company Startfor, released by the pressure group WikiLeaks, suggested that several members of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency knew that Osama bin Laden was living at Abbotabad. Malaysia cancelled a concert by singer Erykah Badu, an American singer, after publicity photos showed her with ‘Allah’ tattooed in Arabic on her body.
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The European Central Bank launched its second long-term refinancing operation for banks. It had earlier suspended the eligibility of Greek bonds as collateral for loans to commercial banks. Ireland is to hold a referendum on Europe’s new fiscal treaty. Russian officials said that Ukrainian security services had thwarted a plot to kill Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia. Unidentifiable remains from victims of the attacks of September 11 2001 had been disposed of in landfill sites, a Pentagon report said. The Costa Allegra, a cruise ship carrying 1,000 passengers, owned by the same company as the Costa Concordia, which capsized in January, was towed to the Seychelles in the pirate-infested Indian Ocean after an engine-room fire. Two cruise ships carrying almost 3,000 passengers were turned away from the Argentine port of Ushuaia because they had visited the Falkland Islands. CSH
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