To the parents of Victoria Climbié, the eight-year-old girl who died in 2000 after being battered by her great-aunt and great-aunt’s boyfriend in a seedy Haringey council flat, the disciplinary procedures employed by British local government must seem to take place in a parallel universe. On Wednesday morning, listeners to Radio Four’s Today programme were
Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, visited Sudan, seeing some refugees in one of the better camps in Darfur, and meeting the Prime Minister and minister for foreign affairs; he confirmed that British troops would not be sent to Sudan. Sir Mark Thatcher Bt, the son of Lady Thatcher, was arrested by South African police
The impeachment of Tony Blair would form a fitting end to a prime ministership which opened with the promise to be ‘purer than pure’, but ended in the arrogant deception of the British people. This ancient form of trial, which has lain disused but not defunct in the armoury with which we defend our liberties,
Eight men, arrested two weeks ago, were charged with planning to commit murder and to launch radiological, chemical, gas or bomb attacks. A-level candidates did better than ever; Mr David Miliband, the schools minister, said evidence from reports he had seen did not suggest ‘dumbing-down’. Mr Richard Thomas, the independent Information Commissioner, criticised the Home
Alternatives to war In his extended defence of the ‘war on terror’ George Osborne (‘While England sleeps’, 14 August) asks what other response there could be. History suggests several alternatives. When Britain was faced with terrorism in Malaya the civil authorities were resolute about the need to remain in charge and so the ‘war’ remained
That England should have a 3–0 lead in the present Test cricket series against West Indies is something that, only a few years ago, would have exceeded the most insane expectations of its supporters. In great measure the success is down to the discovery of excellent talent — Flintoff, Strauss and Key notably — and
More than 140 cockle-pickers were rescued four miles from shore on the sands of Morecambe Bay after the tractors of two rival gangs collided. Four rowers attempting to break the west-east Atlantic crossing record were rescued on the 39th day after huge waves split their boat 300 miles off the Isles of Scilly. Five British
Pole position As Simon Heffer says (‘It’s time to move on’, 7 August), there is no earthly reason why Britain should apologise to Poland for not doing more to help the Poles during the Warsaw uprising. Nor could Britain’s ally the United States have done anything. Prime Minister Belka thinks that Churchill should have dispatched
Dick Pound, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee, speaks for many when he says of the Greeks: ‘They think things being ready at 11:59 is plenty of time. It drives the rest of the world nuts.’ It has become commonplace over the past months to portray the modernday Greeks as unworthy inheritors of
Thirteen men of Asian appearance in their twenties and thirties were arrested by police investigating terrorism; the arrests were in north-west London; Bushey, Hertfordshire; Luton, Bedfordshire and Blackburn, Lancashire. Separate plans by al-Qa’eda terrorists to attack buildings in Britain were discovered after arrests in Pakistan, but the Home Office said no more than: ‘We are
Listen hard and you can hear J. Bonington-Jagworth grumbling loudly. The Association of London Government has announced that it is to fine motorists up to £100 a time for driving in the capital’s cycle lanes. The RAC Foundation, one of the many real-life organisations which have come to ape Peter Simple’s splendid Motorists’ Liberation Front,
The government is to post a leaflet called ‘Preparing for Emergency’ to all 25 million households in Britain; it recommends keeping indoors with bottled water, tinned food, a battery radio, spare batteries and a first-aid kit in case of terrorist attack. Mr Peter Mandelson, the Labour MP who was twice obliged to leave the Cabinet,
But why is Diana’s fountain being closed? Some people are decently embarrassed at the failure of this £3.6 million waterwork. Some people may be secretly amused. They look at the bone-dry channels of the Hyde Park memorial, and the metal security barriers that now surround it, and they feel that distinctive British joy in architectural
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, passed the tenth anniversary of his election as leader of the Labour party. During a Commons debate on the Butler report, he defended his decision to go to war against Iraq. He then turned his mind to a reshuffle. Mr Blair had said earlier that it was time to
As the 1960s drew to a close, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the Moon, pop’s dopeheads were experimenting with ten-minute-long guitar solos, and a mop-haired Tony Blair was in the sixth form at Fettes where, in between canings for insolence, he was railing against fagging. Now, we are led to believe, the
Lord Butler of Brockwell published his report into the intelligence failures that led to the government claiming, in a dossier published in 2002, that Saddam Hussein possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and could deploy them within 45 minutes. Lord Butler described the dossier as ‘seriously flawed’ and criticised some of the language
The most blissfully satirical moment during Lord Butler’s press conference was his remark that Iraq contained ‘a lot of sand’. His point was that the fabled weapons of mass destruction might yet turn up, buried in the dunes. The former Cabinet secretary is known as a man of boundless optimism. It may be that all
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, asked by the Commons liaison committee if he would apologise for going to war with Iraq for the wrong reasons, said: ‘It has got rid of Saddam Hussein and he was a tyrant. I do not believe there was not a threat in relation to weapons of mass destruction.
Too much theory and not enough practice. Those were the words used this week by a lifelong shire Tory to describe what has become of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. She meant that the two societies have become unhealthily
A fine old row broke out over an unpublished book, Off Whitehall, by Mr Derek Scott, a former economics adviser to Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister. It detailed arguments between Mr Blair and Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A spokesman for the Chancellor called it ‘deliberate peddling of lies’ and did