Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said at a press conference in Sedgefield that a dossier on Iraq’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons development would be published. ‘I hate war. Anyone with any sense hates war,’ he said. ‘We are in absolute agreement that Iraq poses a real and an unique threat to the security of the region and the rest of the world.’ In new procedures imposed by the government, the Criminal Records Bureau still had 7,000 school staff to vet when the autumn term began, and many children had to be sent home. Kerim Chatty, aged 29, was charged by the authorities at Vasteraas in Sweden with planning to hijack a plane and illegal possession of a weapon after being arrested as he was about to board a Ryanair flight to Stansted when a gun was found in the wash-bag in his hand luggage. The Fire Brigades Union prepared to ballot its members about going on strike for the first time nationally since 1977; 900 army Green Goddess fire engines were put on standby. A company called Moby Monkey Ltd was fined £50,000 by the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services for sending out text messages urging recipients to claim a £500 ‘mystery award’, which turned out to be a travel discount with conditions attached; calls for claiming it cost £1.50 a minute. Mr Ross Finnie, the rural development minister in the Scottish Parliament, apologised to Mr Digby Jones, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, for calling him ‘an English prat’. There was much interest in a kind of sourdough loaf sold by Waitrose for £9.62; named after Pierre Poilane who created it in 1932, it is round and weighs more than 4lb. Victoria Beckham, wife of the footballer David Beckham, gave birth to a son weighing 7lb 4oz; he is to be called Romeo.
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