PORTRAIT OF THE YEAR JANUARY Mr Ken Macdonald, the Director
of Public Prosecutions, said it was all right to kill burglars ‘honestly and instinctively’. Iraq held elections. Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, the alQa’eda leader in Iraq, said, ‘We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy.’ The numbers killed by the deadly wave that devastated the fringes of the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day 2004 was put at 178,000. Mrs Adriana Iliescu, aged 67, gave birth to a baby girl in Bucharest. China decided to measure Mount Everest, amid reports that it had shrunk by four feet.
FEBRUARY Members of the IRA murdered Robert McCartney, a Catholic, at a Belfast pub, provoking demonstrations by hundreds after his sisters protested. Miss Ellen MacArthur sailed single-handed round the world in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds; she was made a Dame. Mr Mahmood Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, and Mr Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, declared a ceasefire at a meeting at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. The Shiite party, the United Iraqi Alliance, did best in the Iraqi elections. Bremerhaven zoo was bombarded with protests when it encouraged six Humboldt penguins, said to have homosexual tendencies, to mate with females from Sweden.
MARCH Amid wrangling, the Prevention of Terrorism Bill was passed, providing for house arrest of those suspected of terrorism. Mr Howard Flight was stopped by Mr Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, from standing in the election, after something he said at a dinner was misrepresented. Lord Callaghan, prime minister 1976–79, died the day before his 93rd birthday. Among a steady series of deadly bombings in Iraq, a suicide car bomb killed 115 in the Shiite city of Hillah, south of Baghdad. Syria began to withdraw troops from Lebanon.
APRIL Pope John Paul II, who had reigned since 1978, died, aged 84. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, aged 78, was elected, taking the name Benedict XVI. The Prince of Wales married Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles a day late because of the Pope’s funeral; the bride wished to be called the Duchess of Cornwall and, in time, the Princess Consort. MG Rover went into administration, with government help, and 5,000 lost their jobs. Sir John Mills, the actor, died, aged 97. A cheap hotel in Paris burned down, with 22 African immigrants dying.
MAY Mr Tony Blair was seen to be sweating a lot. Labour won the election, with 9,556,183 votes, 35.2 per cent of the total, and 356 seats, against the Tories’ 197. Mr Michael Howard said he would resign. Mr David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionists, lost his seat. The shamed Mr David Blunkett rejoined the Cabinet. The government said it would raise the age for buying knives from 16 to 18. A referendum in France had 54.68 per cent rejecting the European constitution. Witnesses saw troops shoot dead about 500 protesters in Andizhan, Uzbekistan. China gave two pandas to Taiwan.
JUNE President Jacques Chirac sacked Jean-Pierre Raffarin as prime minister and appointed Dominique de Villepin, who had never held elected office. Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, aged 48, the mayor of Tehran, was elected President of Iran. In Zimbabwe police demolished urban shacks leaving 200,000 homeless. Dr John Sentamu, a former Ugandan high court judge, was named Archbishop of York. Michael Jackson, the singer, was found not guilty on charges of child abuse after a 16-week trial.
JULY The Live 8 concert in Hyde Park sought attention for poverty in Africa to coincide with the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, during which Britain was named host for the 2012 Olympics. The next day, 7 July, 54 died in London at the hands of Islamist suicide bombers. Two weeks later four bombers in London survived when explosives failed to go off. The next day, police shot dead a Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, at Stockwell Underground station. Three bombs at Sharm el-Sheikh killed at least 64. Saddam Hussein, the deposed president of Iraq, was charged with a massacre of 140 people in 1982. Christopher Fry, the author of The Lady’s Not For Burning, died, aged 97. Sir Edward Heath, prime minister from 1970 to 1974, died, aged 89. In Newcastle 1,700 volunteers took their clothes off and were photographed on the Millennium Bridge.
AUGUST The IRA announced: ‘The leadership of Óglaigh na hÉireann has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign.’ Mr Tony Blair said, of Islamist terrorism, ‘The rules of the game are changing.’ King Fahd of Saudi Arabia died, aged about 83. More than 7,500 settlers were removed when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip. The European Union blocked the import of 48 million sweaters from China. Dixons, the demotic chain, stopped selling film cameras in favour of the digital kind. The full force of Hurricane Katrina narrowly missed New Orleans, from which a million people fled, but water several feet deep inundated the city; initial claims that 10,000 had died proved five times too great. A tornado ripped off dozens of roofs in Birmingham.
SEPTEMBER Terrible scenes developed in New Orleans, notably among 25,000 at the Superdome and 15,000 waiting at the New Orleans Convention Centre. People lacked water and medical care under a hot sun; there was poor sanitation and a breakdown in law and order. President Bush found he was blamed. Mr Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said that in Britain, ‘some districts are on their way to becoming fully fledged ghettos — black holes into which no one goes without fear and trepidation and from which no one ever escapes undamaged’. The Royal Mail issued stamps inscribed Emmerdale and Rising Damp.
OCTOBER An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 struck Kashmir. Estimates of those killed rose to about 75,000, almost all in the Pakistan-controlled territory. Mrs Angela Merkel of the Christian Democrats became Chancellor of Germany, forming a coalition government two months after the election. The number of American troops killed in Iraq since 2003 rose above 2,000. The number of registered sex offenders in Britain rose to 28,994, from 24,572 a year before.
NOVEMBER Mr David Blunkett resigned from the Cabinet again, after taking a directorship in a DNA-testing company. The government was defeated, 322 to 291, over provisions in the Terrorism Bill to hold suspects for 90 days. France saw three weeks of rioting by Muslim youths of North and West African origin. More than 8,000 cars were set on fire. Three bombs in New Delhi killed 59. Four suicide bombers from Iraq killed 57, mostly Jordanian wedding guests, in Amman. Mr Ariel Sharon, aged 78, left Likud and started a new centrist party. David Austin, the cartoonist for The Spectator and other papers, died, aged 70. George Best, the football player, died, aged 59. A crater on Mars was named Tooting.
DECEMBER Mr David Cameron was chosen two-to-one in preference to Mr David Davis as leader of the Conservative party by its members. Rituals for forming civil partnerships for homosexuals were introduced at register offices. The estimate for the numbers killed in the tsunami disaster of the previous December had risen to 216,858. It was agreed to add a second to the length of the year before it ended. Millions of gallons of oil fuel exploded into flames and burnt day and night at Buncefield, near Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, blackening the sky as far as the south coast. CSH
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