British troops joined the American assault on Iraq, after a Commons debate in which an anti-war motion was defeated by 396 votes to 217 (including 139 Labour rebels), and a government motion seeking 'all necessary means' to disarm Iraq was passed by 412 votes to 149, a majority of 263. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said in the debate that if Parliament voted to pull out British troops, 'I would not be party to such a course.
Britain joined the United States and Spain in tabling an amendment to the draft resolution before the Security Council of the United Nations, reading: 'Iraq will have failed to take the final opportunity afforded by resolution 1441 unless on or before 17 March 2003 the Council concludes that Iraq has demonstrated full, unconditional, immediate and active co-operation with its disarmament obligations.' Miss Clare Short became the first Cabinet minister to threaten resignation if Britain went to war without securing a UN vote; to add injury to Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, she accused him of recklessness over Iraq and being 'reckless with our government, reckless with his own future, position and place in history'.
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said in a speech in Swansea: 'In 1938 Chamberlain was a hero when he brought back the Munich agreement. And he did it for the best of motives. He had seen members of his precious family, people he loved, die in the carnage of World War I. He was a good man. But he was a good man who made the wrong decision.' This followed a motion in the Commons on action against Iraq passed by a majority of 194, but opposed by 199 MPs - 121 of them Labour - who supported an amendment stating that the case for war was 'as yet unproven'. London is to hold an exercise simulating a 'catastrophic incident', according to Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary.
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said, in an emergency statement to the House of Commons on Iraq, that 100 per cent co-operation by Saddam Hussein was necessary, and 'anything less will not do'. A day's debate followed in the Lords and Commons, where many Labour members were prepared to vote against the government. Mr Blair had visited the Pope in the company of his wife, and became the first serving prime minister to attend a papal Mass. At the General Synod of the Church of England, on the eve of the enthronment of Dr Rowan Williams as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, prayers were offered for the British Prime Minister, the President of the United States, Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government.
Perhaps a million people rallied in Hyde Park after a march through London in opposition to war against Iraq. Meanwhile Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said in a speech to a Labour spring conference in Glasgow, 'I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour. But sometimes it is the price of leadership, and the cost of conviction.' He later announced he would go to meet the Pope in Rome. Hasil Mohammed Rahaham-Alan was charged under the Terrorism Act after a hand grenade was allegedly found in his luggage at Gatwick airport after a flight from Caracas. Since 11 September, 304 people have been arrested in Britain on suspicion of terrorism, but only three have been convicted.
Thousands prepared to march to Hyde Park in London to demonstrate opposition to war against Iraq; they included Mr Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrat party. About 400 soldiers from the Grenadier Guards and Household Cavalry with armoured cars began to patrol Heathrow airport, authorised by Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister. The England cricket team decided not to play in the World Cup in Zimbabwe out of fear of a death threat, they said. On television Mr Blair gave Mr Jeremy Paxman an undertaking about the number of applications for asylum being made: 'I would like to see us reduce it by 30-40 per cent in the next few months, and I think by September of this year we should have it halved.
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, returning from a meeting at the White House with President George Bush of the United States, said, 'I believe there will be a second resolution,' referring to a further United Nations Security Council vote for action against Iraq, the advisability of which he had tried to convince Mr Bush. Mr Blair then flew off to Paris to try, with little apparent success, to persuade President Jacques Chirac to back a new UN resolution; he took with him four Cabinet ministers - the secretaries of state for the home and foreign departments, for defence and for education - as well as Sir Michael Boyce, the Chief of the Defence Staff.
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, decided to fly to Camp David for talks with President George Bush of the United States about the war against Iraq. Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said: 'The Iraqi regime is responding to resolution 1441 not with active co-operation but with a consistent pattern of concealment and deceit.' The Financial Times-Stock Exchange index of the top 100 companies fell on 11 consecutive days of trading to its lowest for seven years, losing 49.8 per cent of its value at the peak reached on 30 December 1999. The banking group Cazenove postponed plans to float on the London Stock Exchange.
Police raided the North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park, long suspected to have terrorist links. Seven people were arrested and a stun gun and a CS gas canister were seized. The government dispatched 30,000 troops and 120 Challenger tanks to the Gulf in preparation for an invasion of Iraq, but insisted that war was not inevitable. Half of the soldiers have bought their own boots, a Ministry of Defence survey revealed, because they didn't like the ones with which they had been issued. The Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, proposed to allow universities to charge their students up to £3,000 in tuition fees.
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said at a press conference: 'If there is a breach of the existing UN resolution I have no doubt at all that the right thing to do in those circumstances is disarm Saddam by force.' He also said: 'If there is a breach we would expect the United Nations to honour the undertakings that were given.' The Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer followed the same line in a sudden flurry of interviews. A policeman was stabbed to death and four others wounded after they arrested three men at Crumpsall, north Manchester, in connection with the discovery of traces of ricin poison in north London. In a related operation, police arrested five men and a woman in Bournemouth.
The aircraft-carrier Ark Royal set sail for the Gulf and 1,500 reservists were called up. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said in a speech to a conference of more than 100 British ambassadors that Britain should remain the closest ally of the United States. 'The price of British influence is not, as some would have it, that we have, obediently, to do what the US asks,' he said. 'But the price of influence is that we do not leave the US to face the tricky issues alone.' He thought that the United States should listen to opinions on the Middle East, global poverty, global warming and the United Nations.
A third of families entitled to working family tax credits are not claiming them; 604,000 low-income families are missing out on £1.4 billion, an average of £42 a week each. The Tories are looking for ways to cut taxes, according to Mr Howard Flight, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury; 'It could be up to 20 per cent,' he said. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and his family returned to Sharm el Sheikh, in Egypt, for an end-of-year holiday; they are paying for the holiday instead of letting the Egyptian government do so, as it did last year. There was an argument about who should decide if the England cricket team should play in Zimbabwe.
January. Twelve countries of the European Union adopted the euro as their common currency. Lord Birt was asked by Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, to draw up a report on transport. Rail fares went up and drivers went on strike. Connex South-East found it could get more passengers on trains by abolishing lavatories. Peggy Lee, the singer, died, aged 81. America flew al-Qa'eda and Taleban prisoners to a camp at Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba. India and Pakistan stood on the brink of war. A Home Office report found that in London (where 8 per cent are black) 70 per cent of mobile-telephone thefts were carried out by blacks. February.
The purchase by Miss Cherie Booth, Mrs Tony Blair, for a total of just over half a million pounds of two flats in Bristol, one for her son Euan to use when attending university, set off a lively game of hunt the issue. Someone called Mr Peter Foster was found to have acted on her behalf in the deal, and he turned out to be a convicted conman, specialising in unreliable slimming remedies and awaiting deportation to Australia; he exchanged many emails with Mrs Blair, one of his saying: 'Your pleasure is my purpose'. The Prime Minister's spokesman had earlier denied Mr Foster's part in buying the flats. He is the boyfriend of Miss Carole Caplin, who, it emerged, as Mrs Blair's 'lifestyle guru' interested her in ridding herself of 'toxins' in a shower.
The government announced that 700 health workers and servicemen would be vaccinated against smallpox, and that it was buying more vaccine so that the whole population could be vaccinated if necessary; the action was said by the Prime Minister's spokesman not to be in response to any specific threat. Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, agreed with his French counterpart that Britain should take 1,000 Iraqis and 200 Afghans from the Sangatte Red Cross camp near Calais, which is to close on 30 December; the migrants began arriving immediately. The Fire Brigades Union cancelled an eight-day strike that was to have started last Wednesday, and their dispute was taken to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service.
The Fire Brigades Union and employers' representatives agreed to a deal on a 16 per cent pay rise, in the early hours of the morning on which an eight-day strike was to begin. But the office of Mr John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, said nothing could be done till 9 a.m., and in any case, since no details were available on reformed working practices (called 'modernisation' by the government), no commitment to funding the deal could be given. So the strike went ahead and Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, broadcast to the nation, saying, 'This is a strike they can't win. It would not be a defeat for the government, it would be a defeat for the country.' Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his autumn statement, said that he would have to borrow billions of pounds.
Three men of north African origin were arrested under the Terrorism Act, and some newspapers said that a plot to spread poison gas in the London Underground had been foiled. The government denied this was so; Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said: 'If there is a specific threat against a specific target, we of course will warn people.' The Fire Brigades Union held 'very constructive' talks with Mr John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister. But Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in the Commons: 'This is exactly the wrong time, with exactly the wrong claim, pursuing the wrong methods to demand wage rises so much higher than inflation.
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, in a speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, said that 'hardly a day goes by without some new piece of intelligence coming via our security services about a threat to UK interests'; 'This is a new type of war, fought in a different way by different means,' he said. 'The dilemma is warning people without alarming them, taking preventive measures without destroying normal life.' The level of alert was raised at seaports; Mr David Osler, the industrial editor of Lloyd's List, said: 'The threat seems to have taken the shape of a lorry loaded with explosives.
Mr Iain Duncan Smith noted that 'a small group of my parliamentary colleagues have decided consciously to undermine my leadership'; he concluded: 'My message is simple and stark, unite or die.' His statement came the day after eight Tory MPs defied a three-line whip and voted in favour of a government amendment to the Adoption Bill to allow pairs of unmarried people, of which-ever sex, to adopt children jointly; the MPs were Mr Michael Portillo, Mr Kenneth Clarke, Mr Andrew Lansley, Mr Francis Maude, Mr David Curry, Miss Julie Kirkbride, Mr Andrew Mackay and Mr John Bercow (who had resigned from the shadow Cabinet the previous day on the issue). The Bill, including the amendment, passed the Commons and the Lords to become law.
Miss Estelle Morris resigned as Secretary of State for Education, saying she was not up to running a big department. She was replaced by Mr Charles Clarke, who was replaced as Labour party chairman by Mr John Reid, who was replaced as Northern Ireland Secretary by Mr Paul Murphy, who was replaced as Welsh Secretary by Mr Peter Hain, who was replaced as Minister for Europe by Mr Denis MacShane. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, had an argument at the end of the European Union summit in Brussels, which led President Jacques Chirac of France to say: 'You have been very rude and I have never been spoken to like this before.