» Wednesday, September 15, 2004Cabinet Meeting
The PMOS said that Peter Hain updated colleagues on the events of yesterday and the events in the House. He said it was fair to say that deep concern within the Cabinet had been expressed. It was obviously a matter for the House but it had been agreed that lessons must be learned. He said that Jack Straw updated colleagues on yesterday’s events in Iraq, including the situation of the British Hostages. There had also been a look ahead to Prime Minister Allawi’s visit. When asked whether the effects of yesterday’s events on the Olympic bid was raised at Cabinet, the PMOS said it was not. Security was obviously an important issue and was dealt with within the bid and it was clear from discussions the Prime Minister and others had had in Athens, that people did appreciate the high quality of the technical side of the bid. Asked if an image of “men in tights” in relations to House of Commons security was one Ministers were concerned about in the 21st century, the PMOS said that Ministers were concerned about yesterday’s events for all sorts of reasons, but the primary concern was to ensure that such security breeches did not happen again. Asked if hunting and the actions of militant pro-hunting campaigners had been discussed, the PMOS said it had not and that the next step for the Hunting Bill was the House of Lords. When he had met previously with pro-hunt campaigners, the Prime Minister had stressed he recognised the strong emotions involved and that he recognised their right to peaceful protest, but it had to be peaceful protest, he also recognised the very difficult job that the Police had to do yesterday. Pictures from yesterday had spoken for themselves, for a small minority it had not been a peaceful demonstration and that had been wrong. Questioned on whether or not the Prime Minister thought the BBC should have passed on information they may have had about yesterday’s protest, the PMOS said that he was not aware of the specific details and that it was an internal matter for the BBC. Briefing took place at 15:45 | Search for related news Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says. |
The unofficial site which lets you comment on the UK Prime Minister's official briefings. About us...
Search
Supported byRecent Briefings
Archives
LinksSyndicate (RSS/XML)CreditsEnquiriesContact Sam Smith. |
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Post a public comment