The Spectator

Mr Michael Howard, the leader of the opposition, speaking at the Conservative party conference, summarised Tory plans in ten words: ‘school discipline, more police, cleaner hospitals, lower taxes and controlled immigration’. Neither he nor Mr Oliver Letwin, the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, would make specific promises on tax, on the grounds that former promises had been broken. In a video, Dr Liam Fox, the party’s co-chairman, said his favourite pop group were the gay post-modernist Scissor Sisters. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, had an operation via a catheter to ablate a troublesome spot in his heart responsible for giving him recurrent superventricular tachycardia.

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, in a speech at the Labour party conference in Brighton, spoke of a ‘wholly new phenomenon, worldwide global terrorism based on a perversion of the true, peaceful and honourable faith of Islam’ with roots ‘in the extreme forms of Wahabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia’. He also declared that Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was ‘a personal friend for 20 years and the best Chancellor this country has ever had’.

Five protesters, who had gained access to Parliament by posing as electricians, invaded the House of Commons during the debate on the Bill to outlaw fox hunting and engaged in scuffles with several officials in tights. Pro-hunting protesters were also out in force in Parliament Square, where several were injured in clashes with riot police. MPs once again voted in favour of a ban, though Tony Blair still hinted at a compromise. Ramblers celebrated the opening of the first tracts of moorland under the ‘right to roam’ legislation but without the countryside minister, Alun Michael, who had been advised by the police to keep away from hunting types.

Mr Stephen Byers, a former Cabinet minister, popped up on television to talk about Mr Alan Milburn, the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster with undefined responsibility for drawing up Labour policy before the election; ‘I think he would be an excellent leader of the Labour party and an excellent prime minister.’ Mr Frank Dobson, a former Cabinet minister, said the backbenches were ‘covered in failed prime ministers’. Miss Ruth Kelly became a minister for the Cabinet Office and Mr Kim Howells became minister for higher education. Mr Michael Howard took the opportunity to bring back Mr John Redwood into the shadow Cabinet; Mr Damian Green, Mr John Bercow and, after a little hesitation, Miss Julie Kirkbride departed from it.

Mr Andrew Smith resigned as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. This added interest to a Cabinet reshuffle by Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and provoked reheated speculation about his rivalry with Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Queen gave a donation for the people of Beslan, through the British Red Cross. Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said of the murders by terrorists at Beslan: ‘There are some things which happen amongst human kind which are almost inexplicable according to any basic moral norms — Nazism was and this is.

The Royal Mail paid £50 million in compensation after meeting none of its 15 targets in the first quarter of the financial year, delivering only 88.3 per cent of first-class letters on time between April and June, against a target of 92.5 per cent; Oxford saw only 68 per cent delivered on time. By July Glasgow still had one in five first-class letters late. The Electoral Commission recommended that all-postal voting should be dropped in British elections after reports of abuse and disorganisation in the pilots in June undermined public confidence; Mr John Prescott’s all-postal referendum on regional government for the North East on 4 November would have to go ahead because it was too late to change it.

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 investigating an attempted coup against Equatorial Guinea. Nearly 140,000 immigrants from outside the European Union were granted leave to settle permanently in Britain last year, 20 per cent up on the year before; the total in five years is about half a million. The proportion of 11-year-olds reaching the expected level in English at school rose to 77 per cent (up from 75) and in maths to 74 per cent (from 73).

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 Office’s plans for identity cards, saying, ‘My anxiety is that we don’t sleepwalk into a surveillance society.’ Mr Peter Mandelson was made trade commissioner by Mr José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission.