The Spectator

There is no prize for predicting the two least exciting political events of 2005: the publication of Sir Alan Budd’s inquiry into David Blunkett’s alleged ‘fast-tracking’ of a visa application for his former lover’s nanny, and the conclusion of Sir Philip Mawer’s investigation into the Home Secretary’s misuse of a first-class Parliamentary rail warrant to speed his mistress to his Derbyshire weekend home. Unless Mr Blunkett has already resigned, these investigations — which needless to say will cost taxpayers vastly more than the railway tickets in question — are no more likely to assassinate him than Lords Hutton and Butler finished off the ministers involved in their respective inquiries.

In the Queen’s Speech, the government announced 32 Bills: one to impose ‘voluntary’ identity cards and then compulsory cards; another to create a Serious Organised Crime Agency; a Counter-Terrorist Bill that might allow trial without jury and the admittance of evidence from tapped telephones; a Discrimination Bill to extend the rights of disabled people, and an Equality Bill to criminalise rudeness about religious beliefs, both to be enforced by a Commission for Equality and Human Rights. The Prince of Wales wrote in a memorandum about a woman who then went to an employment tribunal: ‘What is wrong with everyone nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their actual capacities?

A white paper proposed a ban on smoking in restaurants and pubs that serve hot food. It also proposed the banning of television advertisements for ‘unhealthy’ food before 9 p.m., but this would be ‘ineffective and disproportionate’ according to the television regulators, Ofcom. The Hunting Bill was amended in the Lords to restore the government’s original provisions for the licensing of hunts; when it returned to the Commons the amended Bill was defeated by 321 to 204.

The Saturday 17.35 Paddington to Plymouth train, operated by First Great Western, was derailed when it hit a car on a level crossing near Ufton, just before Aldermaston, Berkshire; the car driver and train driver and five passengers were killed and 150 of the 300 aboard injured. Three soldiers of the Black Watch were killed in a suicide bombing ambush 30 miles south-west of Baghdad, and another soldier in the regiment was killed later. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, flew off eagerly to Washington for talks with President George Bush.

The people of the north-east of England voted in a referendum on whether they wanted a regional assembly; they didn’t. Forty-seven Labour rebels voted for a complete ban on parents’ smacking when the Commons passed a Bill limiting chastisement of children. Mrs Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, told the Commons during the debate on the gambling Bill, ‘There will be no new casinos if local people don’t want new casinos.’ About 160 Crown post offices in high-street sites could be closed or sold off because the Royal Mail lost £70 million on them last year. The borough of Macclesfield was found to have the lowest concentration of cinemas, theatres and libraries in Britain.

Bush and Blair, ‘terrorists’ Freedom, democracy and liberation. These terms, as enunciated by Bush and Blair, essentially mean death, destruction and chaos. Tony Blair describes the insurgents as terrorists. There is clearly a body of foreign nationals which has entered Iraq since the invasion and which is committing terrorist atrocities. But the heart of the insurgency is widespread Iraqi resistance to a brutal and savage military occupation. Cutting off somebody’s head is a barbaric act. But so is the dropping of cluster bombs on totally innocent people and tearing them apart. At least 20,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq and many thousands more mutilated for life. We don’t see the corpses or the mutilated children on television.

The United States asked for British forces to be sent from the south of Iraq around Basra to positions further north to cover for American troops required to attack Fallujah, where insurgents have been in control; the government decided to send soldiers of the Black Watch. They would come under American command but retain British rules of engagement. Abu Hamza al-Masri, the well-known hook-handed Muslim cleric, was taken to Belmarsh magistrates’ court to answer ten charges of soliciting or encouraging the murder of others, ‘namely a person or persons who did not believe in the Islamic faith’.

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, coined the phrase ‘opportunity society’ to describe his objective in reforming social services and policing; National Health Service spending on independent providers of diagnosis and treatment would rise ‘significantly’, and specialist schools would become ‘near universal’. He also said, ‘We must change the culture that can write people off at 65,’ by which he meant people would have to work after 65 because of poor pension provisions. Mr Alan Johnson, the new Secretary of State for Pensions, said in the Commons, ‘Means testing is a crucial part of our policy.