January 2000

In an optimistic New Year speech delivered in his Sedgefield constituency, Tony Blair challenges Britain to "be the beacon to the world in the 21st century." 

Shortly after midnight on New Year’s Eve, a Cézanne painting — Auvers-sur-Oise— worth £2 million is stolen from Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum.

Twenty-eight adults and 8 children are ferried to the Hebridean island of Taransay. The participants in The Castaway 2000 project will spend 2000 being filmed by the BBC for a documentary series announced as a study in sustainability.

Hospitals postpone non-urgent operations as the National Health Service struggles to cope with a flu outbreak. Refrigerated lorries are used as temporary morgues. On January 5, it is said that there are only 11 intensive care beds left in the whole of England.

According to the latest figures released by the road safety division of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, a total of 15,000 new drivers have lost their licences since the introduction of the 1997 New Drivers Act — 13,000 are young men, against only 1,300 young women.

In an interview with Radio 4, Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, warns that there might be a violent upsurge in English nationalism as a result of devolution and closer European integration, the English being a naturally violent people.

The "morning-after" pill is being offered free from 16 pharmacies in the Manchester area, which has one of the highest rates of unwanted pregnancies.

General Pinochet undergoes a 7-hour medical examination by a clinical team led by 3 government-appointed doctors after pressure from the Chilean government for the Home Secretary to intervene on humanitarian grounds.

Jonathan Aitken, the former Conservative MP and former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, is released from prison with an electronic tag after serving 7 months of an 18-month sentence. He was jailed in June 1999 following the collapse of his libel action against the Guardian and Granada TV’s World in Action.

The Irish novelist Patrick O’Brien dies aged 85.

The 11-plus exam is to be reintroduced in the 60 primary schools of Wandsworth, a Conservative-led London borough. The results will be forwarded to secondary schools in the area.

The minimum wage, introduced in April 1999, is likely to be frozen at £3.60 an hour for another year.

Harrods, "the top people’s store" loses a 44-year-old royal warrant as "outfitters" to the Duke of Edinburgh. Warrants are reviewed every five years. They allow the holder to use the legend "By appointment." Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner of Harrods, has accused Prince Philip of masterminding a plot to murder his son Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Mike and Fiona Thornwill are the first married couple to reach the South Pole, after a 61-day 730-mile trek.

An expert medical team declare General Pinochet mentally unfit to stand trial. The Home Secretary refuses to release the medical report but announces that he is "minded" to set free the former Chilean head of state following the "unequivocal and unanimous" recommendation of doctors.

Up to 8 million people in England go to church at least once a year. Over 10 percent of the population go at least once a month, 12 percent at least twice a year and 16 percent at least once a year.

The Government reveals proposals to ban parents from smacking their children on the head or face or from using belts or other implements to inflict physical punishment.

Kenneth Branagh wins the Gielgud Award from the Shakespeare Guild, an American foundation. Branagh is praised for his screen versions of Henry V, Much Ado about Nothing and Hamlet. Love’s Labour Lost will be released in March.

A £5 coin is minted to commemorate the 100th birthday of the Queen Mother 8 months in advance. The Queen Mother is seen in profile above her signature, flanked by flag-waving crowds. The reverse, like all British coins, features her daughter.

To promote imagination and creativity, all children are to be taught "thinking skills" in their first three years in secondary school. The Education Secretary also promises that within 10 years every child will be provided with a "customised learning plan."

Jaguar announces the best sales figures in the company’s history with 75,312 cars sold last year — 50 percent more than the previous year.

Sister Lavinia Byrne, a well-known feminist theologian and broadcaster, quits her religious order, the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, after 35 years because of alleged bullying by the Vatican. In her book Woman at the Altar, she supported the ordination of women. She also calls for married Catholic couples to be allowed to use contraception.

Cherie Blair pays a £10 penalty charge for travelling on a train to Luton without a ticket. 

The controversial Health Education Authority in charge of information on how to lead healthier lives is to be closed and half of its staff made redundant. It will be replaced with a new Health Development Agency.

The personnel who were thrown out of the Services for being homosexuals are invited to re-enlist as the ban on serving in the Armed Forces is lifted.

Simon Murphy, a Blair loyalist, who once voted to remove the Queen’s head from euro coins, is elected Labour’s new leader in the European parliament.

Three Britons win Golden Globe awards in Los Angeles: Actress Janet McTeer as best actress in a comedy in Tumbleweeds, Sam Mendes as best director for American Beauty and singer-songwriter Phil Collins for best original song for "You’ll be in my Heart" from the film Tarzan.

EMI, Britain’s leading record company, merges with Time Warner’s music divisions, creating the largest music publisher in the world.

A website is launched on Burns Night (25 January) to help understand the works of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. The site — www.robertburns.org— offers translations of 2,000 Scottish words into English, French, German and Spanish as well as 560 of Burns’ songs and poems.

London has become the most expensive city in the European Union and the seventh in the list of the world’s 126 costliest cities. Tokyo and Osaka-Kobe come first and second in the list for the ninth year running.

A Roman harbour built about 2,000 years ago is discovered 150 miles up the River Severn near Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on the site of the ruined Roman city of Wroxeter.

Faced with the fury of Ulster Unionist MPs, the Government agrees to postpone changing the name of the Royal Ulster Constabulary to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. By the end of 2001 recruits will be selected from a 50-50 pool of Protestants and Catholics.

The Education and Employment Secretary announces an 11 percent pay increase for the 450,000 teachers in England and Wales.

Arthur Andersen, the consultancy firm, allows its staff to abandon business suits and come to work in smart casual clothes.

The income threshold above which parents in England and Wales must contribute to university fees is raised from £17,000 to £20,000 from autumn next year, freeing 50,000 students from fees.

Libyan Arab Airlines resume services to London after a gap of 14 years.

William Hunter (Willie) Hamilton, the son of a Durham miner and former Labour MP for Central Fife, dies aged 82. He was known for his constant criticism of the cost of maintaining the Royal Family. In 1971 he described the Queen’s request to Parliament to review the Civil List as "the most insensitive and brazen pay claim made in the last 200 years." In 1974 he published The Queen and I, a scathing attack on the Monarchy as an institution.

An OECD survey reveals that between 1991 and 1996 poverty affected 20 percent of the population in Britain and during the same period 38 percent spent at least one year below the poverty line.
 

February 2000

(1) The Health Secretary, Alan Milburn, orders an independent inquiry into how Dr Harold Shipman, the notorious mass murderer, managed to conceal his activities for so long and to kill so many patients at will. The inquiry, which is expected to report by the end of September, will concentrate on how best to protect patients and on what new safeguards should be devised against malpractice by family doctors.

William Hague reshuffles his Shadow Cabinet: Michael Portillo is appointed Shadow Chancellor in replacement of Francis Maude who becomes Shadow Foreign Secretary. Archie Norman is appointed Conservative spokesman for the Environment and Transport. John Redwood and John Maples leave the opposition frontbench team.

According to reports, British Airways is to shed thousands of employees over the next three years in order to finance its forthcoming investment programme.

The trouble-hit Millennium Wheel ("The London Eye"), the huge ferris wheel which missed its Millennium deadline and whose operating costs are said to have risen from £25 million to £35 million, is at last declared safe enough for a select few to ride on. It will not open to the general public until 1 March. 

Addressing the annual conference of the National Farmers Union (NFU) in central London, the PM acknowledges there is a deep and serious crisis in the farming industry, but offers no extra cash to see it through.

The Government confirms that it wants to put the issue of British membership of the single European currency on hold until well after the next general election.

The Competition Commission publishes its 1998-99 annual report.

General de Chastelain hands in his report at the deadline of midnight this morning to the British and Irish governments but without revealing any of its contents. It is widely expected that David Trimble will resign or, alternatively, that the British government will suspend the devolved government and reimpose direct rule, if it emerges that de Chastelain has not reported the start of decommissioning.

Scotland Yard brings pressure to bear on West Mercia police to reopen its investigation into the mysterious deaths of two black men in Telford, Shropshire. The family of the victims (uncle and nephew) who were found hanged in early January are adamant that they did not commit suicide as the police ruled but that they were murdered by a white gang after a campaign of racial harassment by the race hate group Combat 18.

Sir John Stevens takes up his post as Metropolitan Police Commissioner in replacement of Sir Paul Condon.

(2) The Agriculture Minister, Nick Brown, has a rough ride at the annual conference of the NFU. He is heckled and jeered at and a cake is smeared in his face when he tells his audience that there will be no extra subsidies to help the farming industry through the worst recession for fifty years. 

A report on cot deaths reveals that a majority (about 60 percent) of them are due to neglect, poor care and in some cases deliberate harm and could therefore be prevented.

The Metropolitan Police agrees to pay £50,000 in damages to a group of Kurds who were arrested by armed officers in combat gear while they were rehearsing a Harold Pinter play in Haringey.

Fourteen people who were sacked by Margaret Thatcher in 1984 from GCHQ, the government’s intelligence gathering centre at Cheltenham, for refusing to give up their union membership, are advised they are to share compensation totalling over £1 million. 

It emerges that BT (British Telecom) is to shed 3,000 jobs in the not-too-distant future.

(3) The Tory party’s Ethics and Integrity Committee recommends to the leadership the expulsion of Lord Archer.

(4) Despite only 366,420 visitors in its first month of opening (January) — just 3 percent of the original break-even figure of 12 million admission-paying visitors for the whole of 2000 — the organisers of the Millennium Dome remain confident about the future of the giant attraction.

Vodafone Air Touch takes over the German Mannesmann for £112 million. The move will create the world's biggest mobile telephones group with a customer base of 42 million.

The Shadow Home Secretary, Ann Widdecombe, urges the Government to cut the growing number of asylum seekers.

The author J.K. Rowling, the creator of the cult children’s hero Harry Potter wins the Author of the Year title at the 11^th annual British Book Awards.

The Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru, easily holds the Welsh-speaking rural Ceredigion constituency after the first by-election this century. (PC: 10,716 votes; Lib Dems: 5,768; Conservative: 4,138; Labour: 3,612. Turnout: 46 percent). The disastrous fourth place achieved by the Labour candidate is attributed to widespread dissatisfaction with the Government over farming and NHS issues.

The TUC announces that the leading employment barrister Cherie Booth QC (the PM’s wife), will represent it in the legal challenge it is mounting against the Government over parental leave. [The Government is refusing to extend the benefit of the European directive to parents of children born before 15 December 1999.] 

A poll of Labour local councillors in England shows they oppose any moves to introduce proportional representation in local elections, which they think produces hung councils.

The PM’s two-day tour of Cornwall and Devon is marked by protests from farmers. 

(5) Jennie Page, the chief executive of the New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) resigns, or rather is given a golden handshake.

Gerry Adams says he has had a "constructive" meeting with David Trimble.

It is rumoured in Westminster that the sacking of John Redwood from the Shadow Cabinet by William Hague, allegedly at the instigation of Michael Portillo, might trigger a leadership contest in the summer. 

(7) After hours of tense and angry debate, the House of Lords votes by 212 to 165 to retain the controversial Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill which forbids the promotion of homosexuality by local councils. [Government ministers wanted it scrapped in a bid to stop discrimination against gays and homophobic bullying in schools.] The Government’s defeat means that the reform of gay rights law will not take place until after the next general election.

In a speech in London, W. Hague says that Tony Blair’s honeymoon is over and that the PM has failed to deliver on a raft of issues such as the NHS, law and order and asylum seekers. After claiming that he has become en extremist wanting to bully public opinion into the European single currency, he adds that the time has come for Conservative revival.

The DTI announces that the police have been called in to investigate allegations that Transtec, a company founded by the former Paymaster-General, Geoffrey Robinson, fraudulently claimed government development grants.

A new report from the left-wing think-tank Demos calls on the Government to ensure that the work parents and carers do in the home receives the same support as work in paid employment. The book, Family Business, calls for better child care provision, universally-funded parental leave and time and care credits for people who do not work so they can look after family members.

The newly-formed 16-strong Children’s Select Committee, set up on the initiative of the Government and the charity Save the Children to mark the tenth anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and made up exclusively of 12-19 year-olds, publishes its first Report on Children’s Rights. It recommends that a worldwide register of sex offenders be set up and urges governments to take action to ban child labour and child prostitution and to protect child soldiers. 

Jean-Yves Gerbeau, a Frenchman who succeeded in turning the fortunes of Disneyland Paris, takes over as chief executive of the Millennium Dome development company (NMEC).

The police negotiate with the hijackers of a Boeing 727 of the Afghan National Airline which has landed at Stansted Airport with 165 people on board.

Japan bans the use of nuclear fuel reprocessed at the brand-new £300 million nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria (Britain’s largest remaining state-owned company) after it emerged that some of the safety data on the fuel had been falsified. 

The new chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Gurbat Singh, expresses doubt about the judiciousness of the Government’s plan to demand a £10,000 security bond from visitors whom immigration officials suspect might overstay their visas.

(8) Judging by the number of tickets already sold, the Millennium Wheel is expected to be more profitable than air travel for its sponsor, British Airways.

In his sixth annual report HM’s Chief Inspector of Schools renews his criticism of failing LEAs. While acknowledging that standards in English schools are rising, he says that the gulf between good and bad schools is widening apace. The report comes just days after the Government sent consultants into three more LEAs making clear it will urge privatisation in at least one of them, Leeds.

A report from the Royal College of Physicians calls for a radical approach to smoking, which doctors regard as a hard drug addiction, and urges the Government to invest heavily in a campaign to help people give up the habit.

(9) In the wake of the embarrassment caused by the overtures made by the leader of the far-right Freedom party, Joerg Haider, to the Prime Minister, Prince Charles cancels his trip to Austria. 

It transpires that the new Shadow Chancellor, Michael Portillo, who seems to have been given almost total freedom to devise Tory economic policy by William Hague, has begun to back down on Tory pledges to cut taxes.

William Hague calls for drastic penalties against cannabis users, which kicks up something of a rumpus in party ranks.

Alun Michael, the Welsh First Secretary, resigns shortly before a motion of no-confidence is voted by the Welsh Assembly. Mr Michael, whom Tony Blair foisted as leader on the Welsh Labour party in 1999 in preference to the maverick Rhodri Morgan, was accused by Plaid Cymru and the other opposition parties of not having secured enough money from Whitehall and the European Union for poorer areas in Wales. Having wrested the Welsh Labour leadership at the third attempt, Rhodri Morgan, 60, automatically becomes Labour’s nominee to take over from Alun Michael as the First Secretary of the Welsh Assembly. While pledging to support the national Labour leadership, Morgan says he will not be a puppet either.

In a speech delivered at the annual conference of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, outlines plans to reform the British tax relief system in order to encourage individuals and businesses to donate more money to charities.

(10) The Afghan hijacking, which is widely alleged to have been a plot for the hijackers and their families to win political asylum in the UK, comes to a peaceful conclusion after a three-day stand-off at Stansted Airport, north of London. The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, pledges to expel all the Afghans if the conspiracy theory is confirmed.

The Bank of England raises interest rates by 0.25 percent to 6 percent. (10 February.)

(11) Dr Harold Shipman, the serial killer convicted of murdering 15 of his female patients, is struck off the Medical Register by the General Medical Council (GMC).

A Gallup poll shows that while voter support for Labour is now only 49 percent, the lowest figure since the 1997 general election, only 28 percent of respondents say they would vote Conservative if there was a general election in the next few days.

A jet is chartered to take home to Kabul those of the hijacked passengers who want to return to Afghanistan. Twenty-two hijackers are under arrest and 74 passengers announce they are requesting political asylum. [Only 37 of the 164 passengers want to return home.] 

For the second time in two years an overwhelming majority of MPs endorse on a free vote (263 to 102) the Government’s proposal to lower the age of consent for male homosexuals from 18 to 16, a decision which the House of Lords is bound to reverse as it did in 1999. Tony Blair will then have no option but to use the 1949 Parliament Act to make Britain conform to EU legislation. 

Tony Blair decides to give talks on important issues at regular intervals from Downing Street’s revamped website: http://www.number-10.gov.uk.

The takeover battle between Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Bank of Scotland over the control of Natwest finally ends in the beleaguered bank’s surrender to RBS’s £21 billion hostile bid.

Lloyds TSB, Britain’s biggest high-street bank, whose profits last year amounted to a record £3.62 billion, announces plans to shed 3,000 jobs in 2000.

English university students stage a protest inside the Department for Education and Employment offices in Whitehall against the Government’s decision not to implement in England the recommendations of the Cubie report for Scotland. [While English, Welsh and Ulster students will have to pay £1,025 in tuition fees — £4,100 over four years — Scottish university students will be exempted from upfront fees thanks to the Scottish Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s acceptance of the Cubie recommendations. Scottish students will have to pay £2,000 after graduating, but only once their income exceeds £10,000. As a result, studying at a Scottish university means different things according to your nationality: a Scottish student pays no upfront tuition fees; an English, Welsh or Ulster student pays £1,025 a year and an EU student pays nothing.] The rector of St Andrew’s University calls the proposals "a new Hadrian’s Wall" and claims that British universities are "in danger of being ethnically-cleansed along Anglo-Scottish lines."

The Home Office forecasts that mainly because of the tougher sentencing policies brought in by the Government, the prison population is set to rise from 65,000 to 80,300 by 2007.

The TUC General Secretary calls on the Chancellor to spend more on public services, especially health, transport, social housing and the regions. In a similar plea, the director of the CBI asks for a better transport infrastructure and suggests that the Government should "give growth a chance" instead of concentrating exclusively on keeping inflation down. 

The first Nazi war criminal to be convicted in Britain loses his appeal against the two life sentences he received at the Old Bailey in April 1999.

(12) Teachers demonstrate in London against the Government’s proposal to bring in performance-related pay.

(13) The British Government negotiates with Pakistan the cost of that country’s providing asylum to those of the Afghans who are refusing to return home.

Responding to pressure from party activists in Labour’s heartlands, the Government is showing signs that it might return to a "redistribution policy" consisting in helping people on low incomes by shifting the tax burden more squarely on the shoulders of the rich — a policy which New Labour largely abandoned in its bid to recapture power at the time of the 1997 general election. 

A national demonstration against tuition fees is staged by students in Broad Street, Oxford.

(14) The Duke of Kent represents the Queen at a ceremony of peace and reconciliation at Dresden, the German city destroyed by British and American bombers during World War II.

In a bid to cut car crime, burglaries and muggings, under-performing police forces in England and Wales are set targets.

While 73 Afghans return home and 70 asylum-seekers are being questioned by immigration officials, 13 men charged with the hijacking are remanded in custody by the Southend stipendiary magistrate. They will appear in court again on 13 March. 

The Deputy Prime Minister announces two full inquiries into the August 1989 Marchioness disaster.

Around 400 anti-nuclear protesters attempt to blockade the Faslane Naval Base near Garelochhead in Argyll where Britain’s Trident nuclear submarines are based. A total of 179 of them, including a Euro MP and a Scottish MSP, are arrested and later charged by the police.

(15) Rhodri Morgan is elected First Secretary of the Welsh Assembly. He rules out the possibility of a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government in Wales for the time being.

The Commons Treasury Select Committee warns that tobacco and alcohol smuggling into the UK is "rapidly worsening" and should be tackled more effectively because it leads to lost revenues and organised crime. 

Lost in Care, Sir Ronald Waterhouse’s long-awaited 500,000-word report into twenty years of child abuse, cover-up and conspiracy involving 650 children at 48 residential homes in North Wales, makes 72 recommendations. They include setting up a an Independent Children’s Commissioner for Wales and Children’s Complaint Officers, clear "whistleblowing" procedures and an obligation for social workers to visit children in their care every eight weeks.

The Bishop of Arundel and Brighton and co-chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), Cormac Murphy-O’Connor (67), the son of Irish emigrants, succeeds Cardinal Basil Hume as Archbishop of Westminster and head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

MPs call on the PM to appoint a "green minister," i.e. one with responsibility for environmental issues. 

The Conservative party sets up its own commission to review the legislation and the regulations governing adoption and fostering.

Plans to introduce two-year vocational university degrees directly linked to the world of work attract widespread criticism.

The trade unions and the Low Pay Unit attack the Government for increasing the minimum wage (for Britain’s two million lowest-paid workers) by only 10p to £3.70 as from October and for refusing to make the increase an automatic annual event. The youth rate (for 18-21 year-olds) will go up to £3.20.

The row over European funding that cost Alun Michael his job as First Secretary of the Welsh Assembly, spreads to Scotland.

John Monks, the TUC General Secretary, says that a recent survey shows that bullying is rife at the workplace.

Overturning a previous one-judge ruling, three High Court judges order Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, to disclose the contents of the medical report on General Pinochet to the four countries seeking his extradition.

The underlying rate of inflation (which excludes mortgage interests payments and is used by the Bank of England to set interest rates) fell from 2.2 percent to 2.1 percent in January. Because the figure is well below the Government’s 2.5 percent target, business and the unions are expected to demand that interest rates be left unchanged. [The latest rise, the fourth in six months, occurred on 10 February.] Headline inflation rose by 0.2 percent to 2 percent in January.

William Hague and Michael Portillo pledge that if the Conservatives are returned to power at the next general election, they will not take Britain into membership of the European single currency.

The number of people waiting for treatment on the NHS rose by 36,000 to 1,108,000 in December. 

(16) Police forces are given new targets to cut crime.

W. Hague starts his "Save the Pound" roadshow.

Official sources announce that the unemployment claimant count total fell by 9,800 to 1,158,000 in January, the lowest since January 1980.

Queen Margrethe of Denmark, an accomplished artist, writer and translator, receives an honorary doctorate from Edinburgh University and the freedom of the City of London.

In a bid to boost e-commerce, the Chancellor announces plans to halve the cost of Internet use by 2002.

(17) The Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges recommends that the Conservative MP for Billericay, Teresa Gorman, 68, be banished from the House for a month for failing to register lucrative business interests on several occasions between 1987 and 1999.

The Chancellor calls for telephone charges to come down.

A National Audit Office study reveals that more than 100,000 people are being infected every year by potentially fatal bugs in Britain’s hospitals and that treating them is costing the NHS more than £1 billion a year.

Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, the new Millennium Dome chief executive, promises to revamp the attraction by cutting queues, introducing flexible opening hours, granting discounts on return trips and organising celebrity visits and major events. 

A report from the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, Britain’s independent nuclear watchdog, reveals that mainly because of management failures, workers at the West Cumbria Sellafied nuclear plant regularly falsify safety checks.

The Government pays out £1.5 million in compensation to the relatives of victims of Nazi persecution whose properties were confiscated by the British state under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1939. [Most of them were German Jews who sent their assets to the UK in the hope that they would be safe there.]

Downing Street announces that the Prime Minister is to chair a review of English and Welsh adoption laws.

A Home Office report reveals that hundreds of women from former Soviet bloc countries are being smuggled into the UK to work as prostitutes.

The Government announces that a working party chaired by Sir Alan Budd is to review gambling laws and to devise ways to stop money laundering and organised crime gangs from infiltrating Britain’s gambling industry.

The Government’s plans to sell off 46 percent of the National Air Traffic Control Services (NATS) to a private company are severely criticised by the House of Commons Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Select Committee. 

(18) Despite the fact that the police have enough evidence to convict Doctor Shipman on another 23 murder cases, the Director of Public Prosecutions announces that no further murder charges will be brought against the serial killer.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) expresses "deep regret" at having allowed the destruction in January 2000 of two rifles that would have been used as evidence by Lord Saville’s inquiry into the 1972 Bloody Sunday tragedy.

A study published in the Lancet reveals that the NHS has less than half the number of intensive care beds it needs.

In a bid to save £25 million, Dairy Crest and Unigate announce a £220-million merger of their milk and cheese businesses, which would entail "some job losses."

A Home Office report reveals that police records underestimate cases of rape or sexual assault on women, which it says are 15 times higher than official statistics claim.

The giant car-manufacturer Ford announces plans for a big cut-back in production which would result in 1,500 jobs being axed at its biggest UK factory, Dagenham in Essex.

William Hague launches a website to support his countrywide "Keep the Pound" campaign.

In the second of his regular Internet broadcasts, Tony Blair announces measures to protect children from drug-abuse and to "get young offenders off drugs." They include the creation of a hotline on which schoolchildren can report dealers to the police, an expansion of the Metropolitan Police’s "Rat on a Rat" advertising scheme and the recruitment of 300 extra specialist drugs counsellors.

(19) Two newly-published guide books criticise London, savage some seaside towns and denounce the commercialisation of some tourist attractions such as Land’s End.

MPs warn that air traffic control privatisation could jeopardise safety.

(20) Frank Dobson, the former Health Secretary, defeats his left-wing rival Ken Livingstoneas Labour’s choice to run for London Mayor by a narrow margin in a contest widely claimed to be weighted in his favour. The electorate college made up of ordinary members, unions and parliamentarians chooses him by a narrow majority of 51.5 percent to his rival’s 48.5 percent. "Red Ken" asks him to step down on the grounds that the ballot system is rigged and the result "tainted" and hints that he might stand as an independent.

(21) CGU and Norwich Union merge to create the UK’s biggest insurance group. The new company, which will be worth £19 billion, will be called CGNU. Norwich Union confirms that 4,000 jobs will be lost in the UK as a result of the merger.

A new report from the government’s Low Pay Unit reveals that women are still paid less than men, simply because they are women. 

The Government decides that the BBC needs more money to finance new digital services. 

(22) While agreeing to raise the TV licence by £3 to £104 from April to help the BBC finance its new digital services, the Government tells the Corporation to raise an extra £1 billion through cost savings and revenue from its commercial ventures. [The BBC wanted a £24 supplement for everyone with a digital TV set.] The TV licence rise, which will amount to 1.5 percent over APR, or three pence a week, will bring the BBC an additional £200 million a year.

The Evening Standard publishes a poll which shows that Ken Livingstone would win easily if he were to stand for London mayor as an independent. 

A poll conducted for the Guardian suggests that racism has been declining in Britain over the last five years. 

The Government is defeated in the House of Lords over its plans to deny a free mailshot to candidates in the race for Mayor of London.

A report suggests that less than a year after its implementation Scottish and Welsh people are disappointed with devolution.

A radical overhaul of transplant services is ordered after it emerges that the relatives of a dead man agreed to donate his organs on condition that the recipient was white. 

Three reports relating to the Paddington rail tragedy (31 dead) are published on 22 February. John Prescott tells the Commons that the Health and Safety Executive is to take over from Railtrack the responsibility for deciding whether train companies are safe to operate and that a new company (a subsidiary of Railtrack, whose chief executive will not be appointed by them and whose pay will be dependent on his safety record and not on Railtrack’s profits) will be created to oversee the safety of tracks and facilities. This attracts much criticism from the families of those who perished in the Paddington rail disaster. They claim that such a company is bound to continue Railtrack’s propensity to put profits before safety. 

The Home Secretary announces plans to replace the Police Complaints Authority by another completely independent body. [Under the current arrangements, investigations into one police force are carried out by a police force appointed by the PCA.] The move is seen as one of the changes that are to be made in response to the recommendations of the Macpherson Report.

The 83-year-old former Tory prime minister, Sir Edward Heath, tells the Commons that unless the Conservatives succeed in wooing back their pro-European supporters they cannot expect to win the next general election. He also criticises Tony Blair’s "presidential approach."

The Gay Rights activist and former Labour candidate for Bermondsey, Peter Tatchell, resigns from the Labour party in protest at what he calls the contempt in which the party holds "its own members and democracy." (He denounces the rigging of the London mayoral candidate selection and the PM’s plans to "pack the House of Lords with unelected, unaccountable cronies and back-scratchers."

The House of Lords votes down by 206 to 143 secondary legislation embodying the rules for the 4 May London mayoral election in protest at the Government’s decision to deny the candidates a free mailshot. The Opposition in the Lords argue that denying the candidates a free mailshot would put Livingstone and others at a disadvantage.

Labour’s official candidate (Frank Dobson), and the Conservative and Liberal Democrat candidates (Steve Norris and Susan Kramer) appear in a debate at Guildhall organised by London’s Voluntary Service Council. 

The four countries (Belgium, France, Spain and Switzerland) seeking General Pinochet’s extradition challenge the medical report that concluded that the former dictator was unfit to stand trial.

Arguing that British economic interests are heavily dependent on Britain’s full participation in the EU, Tony Blair warns that 3,000 jobs in the UK would be at risk if Britain were to "opt out of Europe and withdraw from key debates."
 
 

(24) The long-awaited report of the inquiry into the 1997 Southall train crash (in which 7 people died and over 150 were injured) makes over 100 recommendations for improving rail safety and criticises both First Great Western, the company involved, and Railtrack for their failings. It comes just days after the Government decided that Railtrack (the track and signal operator) would not be stripped of all is responsibility for rail safety (see above).

A government banking watchdog reports that banks are abusing their position in insisting that cashpoint withdrawals should be charged.

The Conservative Shadow Cabinet is said to be considering a plan under which the running of NHS hospitals would be handed over to private-sector companies.

The Conservative MP for Romsey and Waterside, Michael Colvin, and his wife, die in the fire that destroys their house in Romsey, Hampshire.

The Daily Mail reports that hundreds of people had their operations cancelled at the last minute because of the continuing crisis over the shortage of NHS beds.

Ken Livingstone criticises the Government’s transport policies.

Sir Stanley Matthews, the footballing legend, whose name is now a by-word for sportsmanship, dies at the age of 85.

(27) In a surprising U-turn on what he said a year ago, the Prime Minister now acknowledges that genetically-modified food might have a potential for harm. 

Speaking at the celebrations to mark Labour’s 100^th anniversary, Tony Blair tells party members that the current in-fighting over the London mayoral election has to stop if Labour is to win a second term in office. Countering criticism from the party’s left, he goes on to say that Labour needs to maintain a broad appeal well beyond its supporters in traditional Labour heartlands if it is to win the next general election. 

John Taylor, the chief executive of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), resigns in the wake of the safety scandal at the state-owned company’s Sellafield plant.

The Chancellor is expected to deploy what the Daily Mail calls "hit squads" in areas of high unemployment. These teams will encourage jobseekers to improve their job-seeking skills and warn the "workshy" that their entitlement to Jobseeker’s Allowance will be lost if they do not exert themselves more. 

Tata, one of India’s biggest companies announces that it is to buy Tetley for over £271 million, a buyout that will make it the world’s second largest tea business.

For the first time in more than 100 years, cats and dogs from 22 Western Europe countries are to be allowed into the UK without having to go into quarantine if their owners can prove they have been vaccinated against rabies and carry microchip identification cards (commonly referred to as "pet passports"). 

(28) Ian Brady, the notorious "Moors Murderer," who has spent thirty-five years in prison, challenges in court the decision of the high-security hospital in which he has been on hunger strike since September 1999 to forcefeed him. "I am eager to leave this cesspit in a coffin." His lawyer tells the High Court judge hearing the case that forcefeeding Brady amounts to assault.

(29) The Government announces that 1,000 training places are to be offered for NHS nurses.

The battle for the ownership of the National Lottery begins (see December).