The Conservatives made their election slogan ‘Vote for change’, and Mr David Cameron made their flesh creep in a speech at a conference at Brighton concluding: ‘I want you to think of the incredible dark depression of another five years of Gordon Brown.’
The Conservatives made their election slogan ‘Vote for change’, and Mr David Cameron made their flesh creep in a speech at a conference at Brighton concluding: ‘I want you to think of the incredible dark depression of another five years of Gordon Brown.’ A YouGov poll published in the Sunday Times on 28 February put support for the Tories at 37 per cent with Labour at 35 per cent, which would translate as a Labour victory; but another YouGov poll on Wednesday put the Tories at 38 per cent and Labour at 33 per cent. The pound fell to a nine-month low of $1.48 in market fears of a hung parliament. Lord Ashcroft, the deputy chairman of the Conservative party, admitted that he was non-domiciled in Britain for tax purposes. In 2000 he had promised the then Tory leader he would take up ‘permanent residence’ in Britain. He had made donations to the party worth more than £4 million through Bearwood Corporate Services since 2005.
Mr Keir Starmer issued revised criteria on the prosecution of cases of assisted suicide; the victim’s disabilities and relation to the person who assisted the suicide would not figure as they had in draft criteria. The death of a soldier from 3rd Battalion the Rifles brought the number of British servicemen to die in Afghanistan to 268. The Police Service of Northern Ireland fired three baton rounds after flagstones were thrown at them during rioting on the Drumbeg and Meadowbrook estates, Craigavon, Co Armagh. Michael Foot, former leader of the Labour party, died, aged 96. Winston Churchill, the grandson of the prime minister, died, aged 69. Rose Gray, the co-founder of the River Café, died, aged 71. The European Union accorded protected origin status to Yorkshire forced rhubarb grown in the triangle between Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield.
The BBC said it wanted to close Radio 6 Music and the Asian Network and reduce its online coverage in order to reallocate £100 million to ‘high-quality journalism’ and other good causes. ITV declared a pre-tax profit of £25 million for 2009, after a loss of £2.7 billion in 2008. The Royal Bank of Scotland, 84 per cent owned by the taxpayer, reported losses of £3.6 billion and Lloyds Banking Group, 43 per cent owned by the taxpayer, £6.3 billion. Their chief executives voluntarily forwent bonuses. The British insurer Prudential agreed to buy the Asian subsidiary of AIG for $35 billion, funded by a shares issue; the Pru’s shares fell by 20 per cent.
A group called the Red Knights set about raising money to buy Manchester United from the Glazer family. Portsmouth Football Club went into administration; the Premier League penalised the club with a nine-point deduction, making its relegation extremely likely. Applications to Britain for work permits for Poles fell from 103,000 to 54,700 last year; those for Latvians and Lithuanians rose from 18,600 to 30,100. Southern Water announced a scheme for charging more for water in the summer. March came in like a lamb.
Mr Ibon Gogeascotxea, a leader of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the Basque terrorist group, was arrested in a joint French and Spanish operation in Normandy. Afghanistan added the large-billed reed warbler, previously seen only twice since its discovery in 1867, to a national list of protected species, after dozens were spotted in the Wakhan corridor in the north-east of the country. Talks broke down between Iceland and Britain and Holland over repayment of £3.4 billion lost by investors in the failed bank Icesave. Greece announced new austerity measures. More than a million people in France were left without electricity after a storm swept northwards from Spain and Portugal. Muammar Gaddafi, the ruler of Libya, urged a jihad against Switzerland. ‘The masses of Muslims,’ he said ‘must go to all harbours and prevent any Swiss ships docking.’ there are thought to be 26 Swiss-flagged ships in the world.
An earthquake of 8.8 intensity struck Chile at 3.34 a.m., with its epicentre 70 miles north of Concepcion, a city of 700,000. More than 700 were killed and 1.5 million homes damaged. Coastal settlements were devastated by a tsunami, but no serious effects ensued on the other side of the Pacific, as had been feared. Mrs Hillary Clinton, the American Secretary of State, on a visit to Argentina, on being asked about the Falklands, said: ‘We would like to see Argentina and the UK sit down and resolve the issues between them in a peaceful and productive way.’ Lord Rogers unveiled plans to build a 60-storey hotel standing 100 yards out in the water of Sydney Harbour. An iceberg the size of Luxembourg was floating in the Southern Ocean after being knocked from the Metz glacier in the Antarctic by another iceberg that had broken off in 1987. Luxembourg is an eighth of the size of Wales. India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar spacecraft identified thick deposits of ice near the Moon’s north pole. CSH
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