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January:
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The introduction of variable top-up fees for
English universities with the Government only winning the final vote by five
and The Hutton Report into the death of weapons expert, Dr. David
Kelly. The Government escaped censure in the latter with the BBC
receiving the brunt of the criticism, leading the Chairman and Director
General to resign. Tony Blair had to admit that he’d been wrong about
Ken Livingstone when the latter was readmitted to the Party.
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February:
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Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin said that the
Tories would cut public spending from 42% to 40% of GDP without affecting
Health or Education but, not surprisingly, was very vague about how the
savings would be achieved other than by “cutting waste and red tape”!
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March:
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The month was dominated by “non-UK” events
relating to terrorism and the Iraq war. There were bomb attacks in
Spain, killing 200 people and it’s believed that this directly influenced the
general election there with the “anti-war” Socialists taking control.
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April:
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Tony Blair announced that there would be a
referendum on the EU Constitution, taking a massive U turn; however, he
didn’t say when it would be held. There were allegations that he had
been pushed into this by the Murdoch press in return for continuing support
at the next election. But only a cynic would think that, wouldn’t
they?! Beverley Hughes, the Immigration Minister, resigned after
admitting that she "unwittingly" misled people about a suspected
visa scam and 52 former British Ambassadors wrote to Tony Blair criticising
the policy on Iraq and Britain’s subservience to the USA.
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May:
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To big celebrations in mainland Europe, ten new
countries joined the EU; shamefully, the occasion was virtually ignored
here. In the Commons, Tony Blair was hit by a condom of purple flour
thrown by a Fathers For Justice campaigner.
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June:
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There was no doubt that we did poorly in the
European Parliament elections. We lost six seats, the Tories, however,
lost eight but UKIP gained ten and promptly fell out over who should be their
leader. In the NW we were reduced to three MEPs – Gary, Terry Wynn and
Arlene McCarthy and Gary was reappointed Leader of the British Socialist
Group. The local elections were equally disastrous with us losing
control of a number of towns and cities, including Bolton.
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July:
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The Butler Report on the UK intelligence used to
justify the Iraq war was published. It concluded that the intelligence
was now in doubt and later in the year, the Iraq Survey Group said that there
had been no stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq when the war
had been called. Tony Blair nominated his old friend and ally, Peter
Mandelson to be an EU Commissioner.
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August:
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It seemed that everyone went on holiday in August
because nothing in particular appeared to have happened. Oliver Letwin
accused Gordon Brown of “clobbering homeowners by failing to increase the
threshold for inheritance tax, despite the rising cost of houses”.
Later it was revealed that less than 5% of the population pay this tax.
The UK Information Commissioner warned about the proposed introduction of ID
cards into the UK, saying that the country could “sleepwalk into a
surveillance society” because of them.
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September:
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Ruth was appointed to the Cabinet Office as Alan
Milburn’s “understudy” for the general election campaign and we won the
Hartlepool by-election with the Tories falling to fourth place behind
UKIP. The opinion polls found the Tories less popular under Howard than
under Duncan-Smith and Tony Blair announced that he would be standing down
“some time after the next general election”. Charles Kennedy said at
the Lib-Dems’ conference “Dissent, democracy, debate must never be beaten by
bullets, barbarism and bombs. But we should also remember this: we do a
disservice to democracy if we simply meet terror with terror”.
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October:
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In Iraq the war continued to “drag on” with Ken
Bigley being kidnapped and subsequently murdered; the Black Watch were sent
to Fallujah so that the US Army could demolish it and kill yet thousands more
innocent civilians. In the NE the referendum on a Regional Assembly was
resoundingly lost and this has effectively scuppered debate on this issue as
well as plans for a plebiscite in other regions, including the NW.
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November:
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The US voters made the worst possible choice,
returning “Dubya” as President and soon after a ferocious assault was carried
out on Fallujah with the Red Cross estimating 6,000 civilian deaths.
Yassar Arafat died and Tony Blair announced a middle east conference in
London early in 2005. The government announced plans to ban smoking in
most enclosed public places but stopped at a complete ban, proposed in
Scotland and so successful in Ireland. Amongst huge protests
legislation to at last ban “hunting with dogs” was passed with massive
support from MPs. How well the legislation will work in practice and
how effectively it will be policed remains to be seen.
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December:
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Just before Christmas and only days after
speaking at our Branch meeting Ruth was appointed Britain’s youngest ever
female Cabinet Minister, taking over at Education from Charles Clark as he
replaced David Blunkett following his resignation over a visa application for
his ex-lover’s nanny.
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