THE WEEK THAT WAS

BRITAIN'S general election the Labour Party led by Mr Tony Blair was returned for an historic third term of office with an overall majority of 65, almost one hundred less than in the previous Parliament. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats each made gains but fewer than they had hoped for. Mr Michael Howard immediately resigned as Conservative leader, saying that a younger person should be appointed to lead the party into the next election. The Liberal Democrats' tally of 62 was the greatest since 1923. One of the most remarkable results was the victory of Mr George Galloway in London's Bethnal Green; he stood as an independent under the Respect banner after having been expelled from the Labour Party for his links with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. In Northern Ireland, Mr David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the Good Friday agreement, lost his seat at Upper Bann to the candidate of the Reverend Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party. PP The latest leaked official document on Iraq recorded a meeting at Downing Street in July 2002 when Sir Richard Dearlove (head of MI6) reported on a visit to Washington at which he found that the Americans saw military action as ”inevitable” and that ”the intelligence and facts were being fixed around policy”.