The Spectator

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.