From our UK edition
The House of Commons was recalled for a day’s debate on 24 September on the approaching war against Iraq, but no substantive vote will be allowed. Dr George Carey, in his last address as Archbishop of Canterbury to the Anglican Consultative Council, warned that unilateral action ‘by dioceses and individual bishops’ over homosexuality was driving
From our UK edition
Millions of people are yearning for the Tory party to get its act together and provide a more audible opposition. It almost brings tears to the eyes of some supporters, therefore, to read that the party is determined to have a row about the square root of nothing. It is reported, perhaps unreliably, that there
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, lent his support to President George Bush of the United States in preparing for war against Iraq. Mr Blair flew to Camp David in Maryland for a three-hour meeting with Mr Bush to agree their strategy. On his return he took up an engagement to visit the Queen at
From our UK edition
Children, to judge by school exam results, just keep on getting cleverer. But in the inexorable rise of official literary and numeracy levels, there is sure to be a little blip: among those who began school in the autumn of 2002. When, in a dozen or so years’ time, prospective employers are shaking their heads
From our UK edition
Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said at a press conference in Sedgefield that a dossier on Iraq’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons development would be published. ‘I hate war. Anyone with any sense hates war,’ he said. ‘We are in absolute agreement that Iraq poses a real and an unique threat to the security
From our UK edition
Saddam Hussein is a dangerous and evil man, and the world would be a better and safer place if he were removed from power. A killer from early adolescence, he is brutal and psychopathic even by the high standards of inhumanity prevailing in his region. His constant and unremitting search for weapons of mass destruction
From our UK edition
Mr Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, called for a written constitution for the European Union; but in a speech to Scottish businessmen he played down the significance of the demand: ‘The Conservative party has a constitution,’ he said, ‘and so do golf clubs in Scotland.’ Dr Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, said that the situation
From our UK edition
When it comes to doing his bit to save the planet, no one has a right to feel more smug this week than President Bush. No amount of power showers will lift his personal carbon consumption to the level of the 105 world leaders who, unlike him, will be blazing trails of noxious pollution through
From our UK edition
Mr John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, on being asked about British support for American action against Iraq, said: ‘There is no serious division inside the Cabinet and there are debates inside the Cabinet.’ A school caretaker, Ian Huntley, aged 28, was charged with the murder of two ten-year-old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman,
From our UK edition
Hard cases make bad law, and cases do not come much harder than that of the two young girls recently abducted and murdered. The temptation must be considerable for the government to respond by doing something rather than nothing, to demonstrate that it is responsive to the will of the people and that it marches
From our UK edition
It is not untypical of the character of the Home Secretary that, having accused the Tories of ‘playing the race card’ over asylum-seekers, he should himself launch an assault upon refugees on the eve of a general-election campaign. Under Mr Straw’s proposals, it would seem that people fleeing from foreign dictators may soon no longer
