March 2006 in Britain and Ireland

Events in Britain and Ireland

This page deals with current events in the English-speaking places of Europe. These are England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey and Gibraltar.

28 March 2006 (Tuesday)

• 1.5 million council workers across the country begin a 24-hour strike over pensions. (BBC), (Times)

24 March 2006 (Friday)

• 4,000 job cuts have been announced in the National Health Service over the last two weeks with more feared (Guardian).
• Muhammad Babar, a suspected al-Qaeda "supergrass", in court at the Old Bailey in London in connection with alleged plots to commit terrorist offences including attacks on Bluewater Shopping Centre (The Times).
• Britain has been identified as a prime candidate to host interceptor missiles part of the "son of Star Wars", the United States' missile defence system (Telegraph).
• Captain Peter Norton awarded the George Cross for bravery in Iraq in which he lost a leg. he is only the 22nd member of the armed forces to received this medal (BBC).

23 March 2006 (Thursday)

• A tortoise that once belonged to British colonial Lord Clive in the 18th century has died at the age of 250 in a zoo in Calcutta. (BBC)
• The British Embassy in Baghdad confirms the release of three Christian Peacemaker hostages held in Iraq for nearly four months; Briton Norman Kember and Canadians Harmeet Singh Sooden and James Loney. They were freed during a multinational military operation involving American, British, Canadian and Iraqi forces. (Channel 4 News), (BBC), (CTV)

22 March 2006 (Wednesday)

• Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown unveils his tenth Budget. PDF version (BBC)
• The Law Lords rule that Shabina Begum's human rights were not infringed by her school preventing her from wearing a jilbāb, overturning the previous decision of the Court of Appeal. (Times)
• Tracy Williams from Oldham is ordered to pay £10,000 damages, plus £7,200 legal costs for libelling former parliamentary candidate Michael Keith-Smith in a Yahoo chat room and in her blog. She had accused him of being a sex offender and a racist bigot. Williams did not file a defence to the libel writ. (Manchester Evening News), (Times), (BBC)

21 March 2006 (Tuesday)

• John Humble, 50, who admitted being the hoaxer "Wearside Jack" in the Yorkshire Ripper serial murder investigation in 1978–79, is jailed for eight years. (BBC)
• Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said in the Dáil that he believes the British security forces colluded with loyalist paramilitaries in the planning of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane's murder in 1989. (Irish examiner)
• Metropolitan Police confirm they are to investigate claims that the Labour Party broke the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 in the ongoing controversy over "cash for Peerages" row. (BBC)

20 March 2006 (Monday)

• Government announces plans to make all donations to political parties public knowledge after controversy over nominated peers who had made substantial loans to the Labour Party (BBC).
• First motorway car-sharing lane in Britain to be built on the junction of the M62 and M606 between Bradford and Leeds in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion. (BBC).

15 March 2006 (Wednesday)

• The High Court of Justice refuses to allow Doctors to allow a severely disabled baby to die by turning off his ventilator against his parents wishes. (BBC).
• Five arrests made over protests in London against the cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad (Guardian)
• The House of Commons votes to approve an education reform bill. Tony Blair's authority is called into question for his relying on the opposition Conservative party to secure the vote, due to revolt within his own Labour party. (Bloomberg)
• Over 1 million local authority workers plan to go on strike in what would be the largest industrial unrest since the 1926 General Strike. (Independent)

14 March 2006 (Tuesday)

• In London, six men taking part in a clinical trial for a new anti-inflammatory drug TGN1412 are placed in intensive care, some in a life-threatening condition, after suffering adverse side-effects. (BBC)
• Euronext, a derivatives exchange based in Amsterdam and Paris, announced that it might join the ongoing auction for the London Stock Exchange — which would put it in competition with bidders Nasdaq and the Deutsche Börse. (Forbes)

13 March 2006 (Monday)

• London Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair admits secretly recording conversations with the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, an act that could lead to a civil legal proceedings if the other party has not granted permission for conversations to be taped. (BBC)

8 March 2006 (Wednesday)

• An inquest at Bury St Edmunds declares the largest hoard of Roman copper-alloy coins ever discovered in Britain, found near Mildenhall, Suffolk, last October, to be treasure. 258 coins of the usurper Carausius (AD 287–293) and 347 of the usurper Allectus (293–296) were discovered by a metal detectorist. (Eastern Daily Press)
• European Union lifts ban on British beef exports imposed after outbreak of BSE 10 years ago. (Guardian).
• Police stand by "shoot to kill" policy regarding suspected terrorists despite the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005. (Reuters).
• House of Lords to rule on whether Leeds City Council breached the human rights of Gypsy travellers by evicting them from a public recreation area (Manchester Evening News).
• The Channel Island of Sark votes to maintain its feudal system of governance (BBC)

7 March 2006 (Tuesday)

• British Lieutenant General Nick Houghton announces that the UK's 8,000 soldiers in Iraq could begin leaving the country within weeks. Most would be home by 2008, he says. (Guardian Unlimited)

6 March 2006 (Monday)

• The United Kingdom government is defeated in the House of Lords over a plan to make biometric ID cards compulsory for passport applicants. The government is to seek to overturn the defeat in the House of Commons. (United Press International)

3 March 2006 (Friday)

• Gary Glitter jailed for three years by a Vietnamese Court for sexually abusing two girls. After serving his sentence he will be deported to the United Kingdom where he may face further charges (BBC).
• Footballer Ashley Cole sues The Sun and News of the World for "libel, harassment and breach of privacy" over sexual allegations printed by those newspapers despite not being explicitly named in the articles (BBC).
• Securitas depot robbery: Police recover millions of pounds in a raid in Tonbridge related to the armed robbery (Guardian).
• VAT rates on condoms and morning-after pills to be reduced from 17.5% to 5% in Britain in a drive to reduce rates of sexually transmitted diseases (Telegraph).

2 March 2006 (Thursday)

• Securitas depot robbery: three suspects to appear in court over the armed robbery (BBC).
• Italian judges in Milan to charge Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and David Mills, husband of Tessa Jowell the Culture Secretary, in connection with a bribery scandal. (Independent).
• Four people injured in an explosion in a GlaxoSmithKline factory in Irvine, North Ayrshire (Telegraph).
• The Times publishes letters from Charles, Prince of Wales revealing his opposition to the Human Rights Act 1998, lobbying the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor (Times).
• Sir Menzies Campbell has been elected the new leader of the UK Liberal Democrats Party. (BBC)

1 March 2006 (Wednesday)

• Football results:
  • Switzerland 3 – Scotland 1 (Reuters).
  • Northern Ireland 1 – Estonia 0 (Reuters).
  • England 2 – Uruguay 1 (Reuters).
  • Wales 0 – Paraguay 0 (Reuters).
  • Republic of Ireland 3 – Sweden 0

British and Irish events by month

• 2007 in the United Kingdom: January February March April May June July
• 2006 in the United Kingdom: January February March April May June July August September October November December
• 2005 in the United Kingdom: January February March April May June July August September October November December
• 2004 in the United Kingdom: December

(For earlier events in Britain and Ireland, see November 2004 and preceding months)