The Spectator

An order laid before Parliament by Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, will enable juries to be told of defendants’ previous convictions if they touch on ‘an important matter in issue’, such as ‘a propensity to commit offences of the kind’ alleged. The Lords voted 322 to 72 to reinstate the government’s original Bill on hunting, which the Commons had amended. The government acquiesced in the removal of Britain’s veto on European legislation about immigration and asylum, as adumbrated in the Amsterdam Treaty of 1999. Mr Denis MacShane, the European affairs minister, visited Kosovo to take Serbs to task for turning a deaf ear to his instructions not to boycott elections for the province’s assembly.

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.

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.