Yearbook 2007
UK. According to CountryAAH, London is the capital city of United Kingdom. The House of Commons voted in March to renew the submarine-based nuclear weapons system Trident. New submarines would be developed and built by 2024 at a cost of 15 to 20 billion pounds. However, the number of nuclear warheads would be reduced by one fifth. The government needed support from the Conservatives to get its proposal approved as 88 Labor MPs, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru voted no.
On March 23, 15 British sailors and navy soldiers were arrested off Iran’s coast by Iranian forces. Iran claimed that the British had been on the territorial waters of the country, a claim Britain denied. However, the 15 were released in early April, and according to press information, Syria and Qatar had helped resolve the crisis. The Navy was later criticized for having given the parties involved the right to sell their stories to the media.
In April, four British Muslims were sentenced to life imprisonment for planning multiple terrorist attacks using explosives made from fertilizers (ammonium nitrate). Two other defendants were acquitted. After the trial, media reported that the security service MI-5 supervised one of the life sentences, Omar Khyam, when in 2004 he met two of the men behind the suicide bombings in London in July 2005.
- According to abbreviationfinder: UK is the 2-letter acronym for the country of United Kingdom.
On May 3, regional and municipal elections were held in Scotland and Wales and local elections in England. In Scotland, Labor lost government power to the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) by a mandate margin. The turnout was just under 52 percent. Shortly thereafter, SNP leader Alex Salmond formed a minority government in Scotland. The fact that the SNP won the election did not mean that support for independence for Scotland had increased (a majority of Scots still wanted Scotland to remain part of the UK, or United Kingdom by Abbreviationfinder).
In Wales, too, Labor returned, while Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives went forward. The turnout was just under 44 percent. After lengthy negotiations, Labor and Plaid Cymru formed a government coalition July 19 under the leadership of Labor’s Rhodri Morgan.
In the May local elections, Labor also lost ground to the Conservative Party.
Blair left the party leader post in Labor on May 10. There were no other candidates when Gordon Brown was appointed a new Labor leader the following month. The party left failed to get enough support to put up with its own candidate, and several people with close ties to Blair refused to run for office. However, there were six candidates for the post of deputy party leader. The election was won by Harriet Harman.
On June 27, Gordon Brown took over as prime minister. He promised to create a government with room “for all talents” regardless of their previous party affiliation. Jacqui Smith became new Minister of the Interior, while David Miliband was appointed Foreign Minister and Alistair Darling was appointed Minister of Finance. At the same time, it became clear that Blair would be given a mediator role in the Israel-Palestine conflict on behalf of the UN, EU, USA and Russia.
On June 29, it was reported that police had managed to ward off two car bomb attacks near a well-visited nightclub in central London. The next day, a burning car filled with gasoline and gas tanks drove straight into the entrance to Glasgow Airport. The attack could be stopped without any outsiders being harmed. An Indian man, Kafeel Ahmed, who set fire to himself in connection with the deed, later died from his injuries. Seven people were arrested in connection with the death. The arrested came from the Middle East or India and most of them worked in British healthcare, many of them as doctors.
Prime Minister Brown stated that the government would continue its work as usual and in July he presented proposals for a series of constitutional reforms, including the task of deciding whether the country should go to war (the House voted on the Iraq war in 2003). had no obligation to consult Parliament). Brown also proposed that Parliament approve all international treaties. He also announced plans to tighten anti-terrorism legislation and suggested that the police should keep suspected terrorists in custody for no longer than the 28 days in force since 2006 (Blair had failed in 2005 to get Parliament to approve a 90-day time limit).
Foreign Minister Miliband announced in July that four Russian diplomats would be expelled from the UK. The decision was a reaction to Russia’s refusal to expel Andrei Lugovoj, who was suspected of being involved in the assassination of Aleksandr Litvinenko in London in 2006. Russia, for its part, expelled four British diplomats from Moscow.
During the summer, western and southern England suffered the worst floods in over 100 years. In August, new cases of foot-and-mouth disease were reported in Surrey in south-east England. The latter led to Brown quitting his vacation after only four hours. His way of dealing with the crises was praised and gave good figures of opinion.
At his first meeting with the US president at the end of July, Brown indicated that he wanted to keep a greater distance to George W. Bush than the representative while emphasizing how important the close contacts with the United States were. The following month, Foreign Minister Miliband and Secretary of State Smith made a formal request that five people, who had previously lived in Britain but were not British citizens, be released from the US Guantánamo camp in Cuba, where the United States held “illegal combatants” from the war in Afghanistan. detained.
Scottish Head of Government Alex Salmond announced in August plans to hold a referendum on Scottish independence in 2010. He also promised multi-party talks on Scotland’s future, which would include ways to strengthen Scottish self-government. Other major Scottish parties had previously demanded more power for the Scottish Parliament. In office, Salmond’s SNP had an extended honeymoon, when promises to abolish fees for university studies, stops for sale of municipal real estate and smaller school classes made the party popular.
In September, the Northern Rock mortgage institution was hit by the US real estate crisis. Outside the bank’s office, the queues rang long as the borrowers tried to withdraw their money. In September, the government intervened and guaranteed all funds invested.
Brown was able to launch Labor’s party conference in Bournemouth at the end of September with good opinion winds in the back. This sparked speculation that the prime minister would announce elections already in the fall. Statements from some of Brown’s closest associates contributed to the rumors. At the same time, it was emphasized in the media that most of the prime minister’s big speech during the conference could as well have been said by a conservative politician. Faced with the prospect of an election, the Conservatives gathered around their leader, David Cameron, at their conference in Brighton on October 1-3. Cameron had earlier in the fall been strongly questioned within his own party. A promise to raise the threshold for when the British have to pay inheritance tax from £ 300,000 to a million pounds gave a positive result to the Conservatives in the polls, and Cameron stressed that his party was ready to meet Labor at the polls. Cameron criticized the Prime Minister for traveling to Iraq during the Conservative Party Conference, where he announced that 1,000 of the 500 British soldiers would be allowed to go home for Christmas. On October 7, Brown said there would be no fall election. He denied that his decision was due to the conservative views of the Conservatives. However, the trips around a possible election meant that Brown became vulnerable to attacks from the Conservatives. At the same time, the third largest party, the Liberal Democrats, became increasingly difficult to see in the debate, and in mid-October, party leader Menzies Campbell resigned following internal criticism (he was replaced in December by Nick Clegg of the party’s right wing).
On October 8, the Prime Minister announced that another 2,000 British soldiers are likely to leave Basra in southern Iraq in 2008. Just over two months later, Britain handed over control of Basra Province to Iraqi security forces.
The EU leaders agreed in October on amendments to the draft new constitutional treaty of the Union. According to Brown, Parliament would have to take a position on the proposal in 2008. This caused the Conservative opposition to accuse him of breaking a 2005 election promise that the people should say their own on the EU issue. However, this ended up in the shadow in November when it was revealed that CDs containing personal data of 25 million Britons had disappeared when sent via internal mail between two authorities. The government also received criticism for how to handle the Northern Rock crisis. The revelations that builder David Abrahams donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to Labor through agents (something that violates the law) created new difficulties for Brown at the end of the month. It turned out that several ministers had received support from Abrahams. Labor Secretary Peter Watts, who said he was aware of the event, resigned on November 26. Brown denied any knowledge of the deal and promised that the party would repay the money. Earlier in the year, it became clear that no charges would be filed for the secret loans the three major parties had taken before the 2005 election.
In December, former Prime Minister Tony Blair converted to Catholicism.
United Kingdom weather in March, April and May
Average daily temperatures between 10 ° C and 17 ° C can be expected over the next three months. In London, it gets warmest in May, but March is noticeably cooler.
Do you want to go on a beach holiday? The water temperatures are in March, April and May 8-11 ° C. So the weather is not suitable for swimming.
In March, at about 13 days can be expected precipitation in April at about 13 days in May at about 13 days.
In the period from March to May , the sun shines on average between 4 and 7 hours a day. The sunniest weather in London is in May, but with less sun you will have to get by in March.