He said he would be continuing as the MP for Havant and ministers led by Stephen Dorrell the Health Secretary rallied round to

He said he would be continuing as the MP for Havant, and ministers, led by Stephen Dorrell, the Health Secretary, rallied round to say he would be back as a frontbencher after the election.There were fears among the Labour leadership that the ferocity of Mr Prescott’s attack could lead to a Tory backlash on the committee. Leadership sources were keen to refocus their attack on Mr Hamilton. A senior source said: “Willetts is a dead body on the battlefield He is a distraction and so is Mitchell. We should be focusing on the main issue, which is corruption at the heart of the Government.”.

In an ominous sign of the IRA’s violent intentions in the pre-Christmas period, the organisation has failed in an attempt to blow up a security force vehicle in north Belfast using a Semtex filled mortar. The abortive attack was seen as unmistakeable confirmation that the terrorists plan to use lethal means to try to change the Government’s mind on the question of Sinn Fein’s entry into multi-party talks.
This follows John Major’s rejection, earlier this month, of the republican proposition that he should guarantee entry into negotiations if the IRA were to declare another cessation of violence. This deadlock, together with intelligence assessments that the IRA was preparing for a new offensive, meant that Wednesday night’s incident came as no surprise.It began with a telephoned warning, which included a recognised IRA codeword, that a mortar had been left close to the back gate of Girdwood security base near the republican New Lodge area of north Belfast.Security patrols were sent to investigate but, suspicious of a possible trap, used another exit from the base. This precaution appears to have saved lives, since terrorists were waiting to fire a mortar at close range into a vehicle travelling from the back gate.The device was concealed in an alley, inside one of the plastic “wheelie- bins” which are ubiquitous in Belfast It contained almost a kilogram of Semtex. Such mortars are relatively inaccurate, but at close range can have a devastating effect.

After some time passed without security vehicles appearing, the terrorists abandoned the device.Last week three similar bombs were found hidden behind a bricked-up wall in the kitchen of a house in west Belfast, together with more than thirty cassette-type incendiary devices.. Industry may have to pay up to pounds 20bn to reprogram computers with the new date at the turn of the millennium. The “Millennium Compliance”, or “Y2000″, problem represented a challenge for small and large businesses alike, said a report by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. A vast number of computers of all kinds, from desk-top PCs to the highest level mainframes, were likely to crash when their internal clocks reached the year 2000.
Most would recognise the date as 1900, with possibly catastrophic results. The report, written by civil servants for the benefit of MPs, said that responses of companies to the threat of the Y2000 problem are mixed, with some failing to recognise the need for action.”As a rule of thumb, programming costs about pounds 1 per line of code changed,” it said. “For a typical large organisation or government department with hundreds of millions of lines of code, costs could be over pounds 100m.”.

Camelot, the National Lottery operator, has asked the Crown Prosecution Service to investigate a bookmakers’ plan to launch an alternative to the lottery. Camelot says the game, organised by the country’s three biggest bookmakers – Ladbroke, William Hill and Coral – is illegal and hopes to prevent the proposed launch next week.
The lottery, called “49’s”, will take place six times a week at the end of each day’s racing. It will be transmitted by satellite television to betting shops where a lottery machine similar to Camelot’s will issue numbers, enabling gamblers to bet to on the likelihood of single or several numbers appearing from a total of 49. A pounds 1 stake will win pounds 5.50 for one right number, pounds 48 for two, pounds 511 for three, pounds 6,561 for four and pounds 100,000 for five.Camelot said the game would have a detrimental effect on the amount of money going to good causes. The bookmakers said they had been advised that the game was legal.. An Archers addict paid pounds 575 for the original 78rpm recording of the radio programme’s theme tune. Hopeful fans packed a small auction room at Phillips in London The successful bidder’s identity is secret.

At Christie’s in London, a 400-year-old gold ring found in a field in near Foulsham, Norfolk, fetched pounds 20,700.Research had established that the original owner was probably a Thomas Anguishe of Fowlsham (sic), mayor of Norwich in 1611, or his son.
In a sale at Swindon, the top tier of the Duke and Duchess of York’s 1986 wedding cake sold for pounds 860, The 10-inch-square off-white decorated tier featuring the entwined initials AS was bought by John Bell, a magazine editor in Florida, for a competition. In June he paid pounds 640 for a piece of the Prince and Princess of Wales’s wedding cake.. Dog owners were elated yesterday as the RSPCA said it was in favour of abolishing quarantine for cats and dogs coming in from countries recognised as rabies-free. Celebrities who have campaigned for the abolition of the 95-year-old British quarantine laws requiring pets to spend six months in quarantine at a cost of up to pounds 2,000 to their owners were delighted by the society’s backing.
The charity’s campaign for reform follows a survey which found that 86 per cent of the public would accept an alternative to quarantine if it could be properly implemented and proved to keep Britain rabies-free. The NOP survey, commissioned by the RSPCA, also found that 72 per cent of people said they would find a vaccination system an acceptable alternative.Peter Davies, the RSPCA’s director general, said yesterday that a system of vaccination, blood testing and permanent identification for dogs and cats would provide Britain with “an equal, if not greater, protection from rabies as quarantine”. He is now urging the Government to commission a full-scale risk assessment of both quarantine and alternative systems and implement the “most humane and effective system” as quickly as possible.The British Veterinary Association has not yet come out for change, but vets are known to be six to one in favour.