The Week That Was in 2001: Jack Straw under fire and space tourist blasts off

A proposed £28bn merger of the Halifax and Bank of Scotland could cost thousands of jobs, unions warned during this week of 2001.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw arrives for a cabinet meeting in London in 2001. PA Photo: Michael Stephens.Foreign Secretary Jack Straw arrives for a cabinet meeting in London in 2001. PA Photo: Michael Stephens.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw arrives for a cabinet meeting in London in 2001. PA Photo: Michael Stephens.

The plan, if approved, would create the country’s fifth largest bank, with 57,000 staff and more than 1,000 branches.

The closure of at least one of the companies’ head offices – one in Halifax and the other in Edinburgh – along with some branches was on the cards.

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Unions demanded that the proposals be referred to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to consider whether the merger was in consumers’ interests.

They said their concerns centred not only on potential job losses but also on the reduction of competition in the banking industry and poorer deals for customers.

A merger would help the Halifax strengthen its business in areas outside the mortgage market, while the Bank of Scotland would gain greater influence south of the border.

Meanwhile, the OFT was busy relaunching its High Court battle to end price fixing on over-the-counter medicines.

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The Government watchdog wanted to abolish the last class of goods where suppliers and manufacturers could set minimum rates for retailers, saying it led to “unnecessarily high prices”.

Remedies included in the last exemption under the Resale Prices Act, which abolished price fixing in 1964, were painkillers, cold and cough medicines, laxatives, vitamins, garlic supplements, skin treatments and anti-smoking products.

Yorkshire’s rank and file police officers poured scorn on Home Office figures revealing a huge rise in police recruitment, claiming Government “spin” distorted the true picture – that experienced officers were leaving in droves. As Home Secretary Jack Straw boasted a 77 per cent national increase in new recruits – with Yorkshire and the Humber showing the biggest rise of 168 per cent – the figures were ridiculed by the region’s police federations. In West Yorkshire, Police Federation secretary Richard Critchley said: “West Yorkshire Police hasn’t been recruiting for two years, so to recruit one person instead of none is a huge achievement.”

A 60-year-old Californian billionaire become the world’s first paying space tourist when he blasted off from Kazakhstan for an eight-day holiday aboard the International Space Station. Businessman and former NASA employee Denis Tito said the adventure had been his ambition for 40 years. He had paid $20m for the privilege, but despite his wealth there had been many setbacks to overcome before he could don his space suit.

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At first NASA had rejected his application, saying he was not a trained astronaut. So Mr Tito applied to the Russian space agency which agreed to take him into outer space.

However, his first return ticket was cancelled when his destination – the Mir Space Station – was decommissioned and fell back to Earth earlier in the year. He was then offered a place on a Soyuz supply mission to the International Space Station.

NASA eventually agreed that Mr Tito could travel to the Space Station with the Russians if he agreed not to sue if injured, to pay for anything he damaged or broke and to sleep only in Russian quarters on board.

And the high priest of British White Witches Kevin Carlyon, from Hastings, East Sussex, travelled to Scotland to cast a spell which he said would protect the Loch Ness Monster from capture. A team of Swedish scientists was engaged in Operation Cleansweep to find the elusive creature using sonar and a hydrophone lent to them by the Swedish Navy and catch it in a large ‘Sea Serpent Trap’.

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