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A safety campaign group has said all horse riders should wear hats, after the release of a picture of the Queen on a horse wearing only a headscarf.
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Paolo Di Canio is set to meet Swindon chairman Jeremy Wray to discuss becoming the club’s new manager, BBC Wiltshire understands.
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The Paralympic mascot highlighted the countdown to the Games last month The prices for next year’s London 2012 Paralympic tickets are due to be announced later.
Two million tickets for 20 sports will go on sale from 9 to 30 September.
More than 4,200 athletes from about 150 countries are expected to participate at the Games from 29 August to 9 September 2012.
The announcement follows Olympic ticket sales, which saw about 1.8 million people apply for 6.6 million tickets.
Those tickets were hugely over-subscribed, organisers said, with the total demand topping 20 million tickets.
Adult prices for the Olympics ranged from £20 to £2,012 for the best ticket for the opening ceremony, with some concessions available.
The Paralympic games will be staged in many of the Olympic venues, including the Olympic stadium (athletics), aquatics centre (swimming) and velodrome (cycling), as well as the likes of Eton Dorney (rowing), Weymouth (sailing) and Greenwich Park (equestrian para-dressage).
The Olympic Park will also stage the five-a-side and seven-a-side football at the Olympic hockey centre and goalball at the Olympic handball arena, as well as wheelchair rugby and wheelchair basketball at the Olympic basketball arena, although some basketball will also be held at the North Greenwich Arena.
The ExCel exhibition centre in the Docklands will host boccia, judo, sitting volleyball, wheelchair fencing, table tennis and powerlifting.
Keep up-to-date with news, sport and moreBBC London 2012
The wheelchair tennis events will be staged at Eton Manor while the archery and shooting will both be held at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich.
The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is expected to announce how tickets will be allocated on Wednesday.
For the Olympic Games, there has been criticism of the prices, the ballot system and the fact that money is taken from accounts before applicants know which events they have secured.
Applicants were originally told to make sure they had enough money in their accounts from 10 May to 10 June.
But organisers now say people will not be billed until next Monday at the earliest while they carry out ballots for oversubscribed events.
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The NHS reforms are on hold The NHS in England needs rapid decisions on the health bill to avoid disarray, doctors and managers say.
The NHS Confederation and British Medical Association said uncertainty after the plans were put on hold may even put savings targets in jeopardy.
It comes as the government is discussing making wide-ranging concessions.
But, in a boost to ministers, GPs piloting the changes have urged them to press ahead.
More than 40 GPs already working in consortia, which, under the plans, will get control of most of the NHS budget from 2013, wrote a letter published in the Daily Telegraph which said the reforms were needed to improve patients care.
The Telegraph letter’s lead signatory is Dr Jonathan Munday, chairman of the Victoria Commissioning Consortium, and a former Conservative councillor and mayor.
Echoing earlier comments by Prime Minister David Cameron, they said the reforms were “not revolutionary but an evolution”.
The government put the progression of the health bill in parliament on hold last month to carry out a listening exercise.
The BBC understands one solution being seriously considered is to keep remaining primary care trust clusters beyond 2013 to give GP consortia support. Scrapping PCTs is one of the controversial elements of the programme as it was not part of the Tory manifesto or coalition agreement.
Since the plans were announced the number of PCTs has shrunk rapidly from more than 150 to just over 50 clusters.
This still leaves the politically charged issue of competition to be resolved. Some experts believe this could be addressed by defining in more detail the role of the economic regulator Monitor, and strengthening reassurances about the need for collaboration with the the health service.
Concessions have already been signalled over the price and cherry picking by private firms, but further announcements over the extent to which the NHS is being opened up to competition law can be expected.
Other key areas include whether the make-up of GP commissioning groups could be widened to include other groups, such as nurses.
The government is expected to announce the results of its listening exercise in June.
Nigel Edwards, of the NHS Confederation, which represents managers, said it could not come soon enough. “The NHS has an incredible capacity for change, and the system goes into overdrive. So much is happening already that decisions need to be made rapidly, ideally before September.”
Stephen Dorrell, a Tory MP and chairman of the health select committee, said there was no reason why the key principles of the plans should not survive as they were in line with “most of the key ideas” of the last 20 years.
Instead, he said he expected to see changes in emphasis and presentation as well as greater clarity over issues such as accountability.
He added: “I hope what we will see is a bill which is accurately targeted at the problems. That is managing demand for health care against a backdrop of tighter finances and changing patterns of need in the community.”
But in a sign of the difficulty facing the government in its attempts to get consensus Richard Vautrey, of the BMA’s GP committee, suggested the government may have to start again.
“Withdraw the bill, reframe it and return it to parliament once you have the support of the profession. It is a mess. Valuable, talented managers are already jumping shift. We have to be mindful the NHS has to make significant savings so more than anything the NHS needs clarity.”
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Natalie Gentle says the Asbo left her open to court claims of prostitution A Plymouth woman has said an Anti-social Behaviour Order (Asbo) which led to her being accused of prostitution in court has ruined her life.
Former pole dancer Natalie Gentle, 29, of Manstone Avenue, was accused by neighbours of prostitution in evidence to Plymouth magistrates last week.
She had been given an interim Asbo in 2009, banning men from visiting her flat after 2200.
But on 4 May magistrates rejected the claims she was working as a prostitute.
The city council, asking for the interim order to be made long term, claimed that she may have been funding drug use from prostitution.
The council was acting on behalf of the landlord, Plymouth Community Homes, which had received complaints from a number of neighbours about noise and the number of male visitors at Ms Gentle’s flat.
But magistrates said the evidence about prostitution was inconclusive and circumstantial.
Magistrates dropped the ban on men visiting her flat but gave Ms Gentle a two-year Asbo.
The new order says she must not be found in a drunken or intoxicated condition, whether due to the consumption of alcohol or controlled drugs, in any public place at any time in Plymouth.
She was also told she must not cause any noise nuisance or disturbance to neighbours by the playing of loud music from any residential premises or by shouting or arguing with anyone.
“I was a prisoner in my own home”
Natalie Gentle
Ms Gentle told BBC News she had never been a prostitute.
“My whole life has been ruined,” she said.
“I was labelled a prostitute in court and accused of terrorising the neighbourhood without me committing any crimes.”
She admitted that she was “not perfect” and had used drugs, but that she no longer did.
“I am not innocent,” she said.
“But if there was a problem with neighbours it could have been resolved without an Asbo.
“There should be another option. I was labelled a criminal and that’s not fair.”
She added: “I was called all the names under the sun. I was a prisoner in my own home.”
Plymouth Community Homes said in a statement: “We have a very clear process for investigating anti-social behaviour which includes talking to the alleged offender and neighbours and investigating and monitoring any disturbances.
“Only where someone is still causing disturbance for others would they take things further and their preference is always to find a solution.”
The coalition government announced in February that it was considering the creation of new behaviour orders and the abolition of Asbos.
Plans include a Crime Prevention Injunction aimed at stopping anti-social behaviour before it escalates.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The home secretary has been clear, the current tools are overly bureaucratic and don’t work effectively.
“We are currently consulting on a new way forward to tackle anti-social behaviour, giving local agencies a toolkit that provides a strong deterrent and is quick, practical and easy to use.”
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Information commissioner Christopher Graham had wanted a harsher fine Andrew Crossley, the controversial solicitor who made money by accusing computer users of illegal file sharing, has been fined £1,000.
The penalty has been imposed for a data breach which saw the personal details of 6,000 computer users, targeted by his firm, exposed online.
Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said that the severity of the breach warranted a heavier fine.
But he added that Mr Crossley was not in a position to pay.
“Were it not for the fact that ACS:Law has ceased trading so that Mr Crossley now has limited means, a monetary penalty of £200,000 would have been imposed, given the severity of the breach.”
A spokeswoman for the ICO told the BBC that it did not have the power to audit people’s accounts but said that Andrew Crossley had provided a sworn statement on the state of his finances.
The security breach occurred following a denial-of-service attack by members of the hacktivist group Anonymous, who were unhappy at the tactics being used by Mr Crossley and his law firm.
“Sensitive personal details relating to thousands of people were made available for download to a worldwide audience and will have caused them embarrassment and considerable distress,” said Mr Graham.
As well as exposed peoples’ names and addresses, a list of pornographic films they were accused of illegally downloading was also made available.
“The security measures ACS:Law had in place were barely fit for purpose in a person’s home environment, let alone a business handling such sensitive details,” Mr Graham said.
ACS:Law was conducting a widespread speculative invoicing campaign, which saw Mr Crossley send letters to thousands of people accusing them of downloading content without paying for it and asking them to pay a fine of around £500 per infringement.
The scheme came unstuck when a handful of the cases went to court and the judge ruled that the Mr Crossley had mishandled them and abused the court system.
He faces a disciplinary hearing at the Solicitors Regulation Authority next month.
The data breach was one of the most high profile and worst seen in the UK to date.
The relatively small fine imposed on Mr Crossley will anger opponents who argue that the ICO lacks any real teeth when it comes to data breaches.
It was recently criticised for not being tougher on Google after the firm accidentally collected personal information from millions of unsecured wi-fi connections when it collected pictures for its StreetView service.
The ICO has called for greater powers to investigate data breaches and to probe deeper into peoples’ finances.
“We would welcome the power to refer cases like this to the court who can order people to be questioned about their financial affairs with appropriate sanctions if they do not cooperate,” an ICO spokeswoman told the BBC.
But critics think more is needed.
“There should be a complete review of privacy policy in the UK. The ICO has been given half-baked powers that haven’t been thought through and that they aren’t able to exercise fully,” said Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group.
“This fine is shockingly low. Many people have been aggrieved and wrongly accused. They are entitled to some form of compensation,” he added.
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HSBC employs more than 287,000 people in 87 countries. HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, wants to save up to $3.5bn (£2bn; 2.4bn euros) by cutting the scale of its wealth management and retail divisions.
The bank is also streamlining IT operations and the operational structure, though no figures were given for the number of job cuts.
HSBC disclosed the plans on Wednesday ahead of a meeting with key investors.
The bank’s problems were revealed on Monday after a big rise in costs held back profits.
The proportion of revenue spent on operational costs was 61% in the first quarter, and HSBC said it wanted to reduce this to 48%-52% by 2013.
HSBC said in a statement that it would now focus its wealth management business on 18 key economies, and limit retail banking to markets where it can achieve profitable scale.
The bank currently operates in 87 markets and employs more than 287,000 people.
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The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have begun their honeymoon at a destination widely reported to be in the Seychelles. But having tried to keep the location secret, can they still avoid the attentions of the paparazzi?
There is near insatiable demand across the world for pictures of the royal couple.
And there will be paparazzi who will be desperate to get long-lens shots of William and Catherine on the beach during their honeymoon.
The Palace has asked for the couple to be left alone, with the privacy debate having intensified in recent days after the publication of five-year-old photos of them on a yacht off Ibiza, prompting an appeal to the Press Complaints Commission. A month before the yacht pictures, Carole and Pippa Middleton also complained informally to the PCC that they’d been harassed by snappers on mopeds.
Secrecy has shrouded William and Catherine’s honeymoon plans but speculation that they are in the Seychelles appears to have been confirmed by the tourist board there. Which of the 115 islands in the Seychelles archipelago they are on is not clear.
But with only four of them privately owned, it may not take the paparazzi long to track them down. Already the German property mogul Farhad Vladi has been quoted in a Hamburg paper saying that the couple are renting North Island, which he owns.
The royal couple and their aides will have made careful efforts to keep their honeymoon under wraps.
“It’s unfortunate when you’re the hottest couple in the world, there’s a huge demand for pictures and stories,” says the Sun’s Royal photographer Arthur Edwards.
But he believes that Prince William is capable of keeping their honeymoon bolthole private. “William is an old hand at dodging photographers. And if anyone invades their privacy they’re not going to take it lying down, they’ll fight back.”
Only three people will have known where they were heading, Edwards guesses – and the Queen and Prince Harry might not have been part of the privileged triumvirate. “William is media savvie. He keeps things to himself, Catherine and his private secretary.”
Gentlemen’s agreement
The prince will be determined to avoid a repeat of the pattern in which his mother Diana had her privacy repeatedly breached, Edwards says. “He’s a clever guy, he’ll do it his way. He won’t let what happened to his mother happen to his wife.”
In any case a number of British papers appear to have a gentlemen’s agreement with the Royal Family, vowing not to publish any honeymoon pictures that have not been officially released by St James’s Palace.
Mark Borkowski, founder and head of Borkowski PR, believes that after giving the media what they want at the wedding, including two kisses on the balcony and the Aston Martin moment, the press will reward them with peace and quiet.
The way the duchess’s wedding dress was kept under wraps before the big day suggests the royal household are good at keeping secrets. A couple of publications guessed it would be Sarah Burton, but the design itself was successfully concealed.
And Katie Nicholl, royal editor of the Mail on Sunday, says that William and Catherine have a strong record in keeping their plans secret. Not only was there the stag do – which no-one found out about until later – but their engagement in Kenya last year was kept hush-hush.
William and Catherine are a major paparazzi target There are a range of tactics they might employ for keeping out prying eyes, she says. Hotels can be booked under false names, “intricate” flight plans make them hard to follow and any destination would be recced by their security team.
They would want stay on a private island as it allows the local navy to stop paparazzi getting to shore, she says.
The gentlemen’s agreement should see British newspapers behave, but there are two groups who won’t play ball, Borkowski warns. “If there’s a bounty on their heads, it doesn’t stop rogue foreign photo agencies. And now that everyone’s got a camera on their phones it’s hard to avoid pictures even in remote places.”
But fellow PR man Max Clifford says that attempting to keep complete secrecy would be an own goal for the honeymoon couple. Not only do the media need royal stories to sell papers, Buckingham Palace needs the media to help rebrand the monarchy, he believes.
“They need the support of the media. These youngsters are the future of the monarchy, they had a tremendously successful wedding and they need to keep the momentum going.”
For Clifford there is an easy solution that would suit both parties. A few days into the honeymoon, they should give over two or three hours for the media to get the pictures they want. “That’s the way it should be done. ‘Thank you, you’ve got your pictures now leave us alone.'”
It would give the press something, allow the Royals to keep control of the images, and ensure that the couple’s privacy is respected for the rest of the holiday. Such a compromise used to be a regular part of skiing holidays in Klosters. In exchange for being left in peace on the slopes, Prince Charles and his sons would pose for the assembled press corps in an organised session.
But Nicholl, who wrote The Making of a Royal Romance, disagrees. “I think a photocall is very unlikely. They want to be left in peace, this is the last holiday they’ll have in total seclusion.”
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Doctor Who writer Steven Moffat is angry with fans who leaked plot details online.
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David Starkey was critical of what he described as waste in state school education The historian David Starkey has said England’s education system is in crisis and the money spent on it might as well have been “burned”.
Mr Starkey said too many youngsters were leaving school unqualified and unprepared for the world of work.
The author, who controversially called a pupil fat in a reality TV show, said good teachers and tougher discipline would be better than extra resources.
He was speaking at a conference run by independent school Brighton College.
Mr Starkey failed to control his class when he worked as a history teacher on Jamie Oliver’s Channel 4 programme Jamie’s Dream School.
“It’s arguably our greatest national crisis, that half of the population of state schools emerges wholly unqualified and wholly unable to work”
David Starkey
The show brought together figures such as Alastair Campbell, Rolf Harris and Daley Thompson to teach a class of 20 teenagers from different backgrounds.
Mr Starkey said the show had showed the funding of their education had been a waste.
“It’s arguably our greatest national crisis, that half of the population of state schools emerges wholly unqualified and wholly unable to work,” he said
“If you think of what it costs to educate a child in the state system, one hundred or two hundred thousand [pounds], it must be of that order in the period of compulsory education.
“You might as well have taken that money and burned it for all the impact that it had made on them.
“Multiply that by thousand after thousand after thousand, tens of thousands, millions, and that’s what you’re looking at.”
The historian also predicted the living standards of the middle classes would drop.
“We constantly talk about the importance of social mobility. This is one of the great things about the current government.
“But, ladies and gentlemen, true social mobility involves downward mobility as well as upward mobility.
“And we are going to see increasingly, I suspect, downward middle-class mobility – children who will not be able to maintain the living standards that they have been brought up to.”
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By Pallab Ghosh
X chromosome: Telomeres are shown in red People with fewer qualifications are prone to age more quickly, a study which looked at 400 men and women says.
DNA evidence suggests cellular ageing is more advanced in adults with no qualifications compared with those who have a university degree.
Experts think education might help people lead more healthy lives.
The British Heart Foundation said the London-based study, in journal Brain, Behaviour and Immunity, reinforced the need to tackle social inequalities.
The connection between health and socioeconomic status is well established.
Those from poor backgrounds are more likely to smoke more, take less exercise and have less access to good quality healthcare, compared with more wealthy people.
But the new study suggests that education might be a more precise determinant of a person’s long term health rather than their current income and social status.
The researchers suggest that education may enable people to make better decisions that affect their long term health.
“It’s not acceptable that where you live or how much you earn – or lesser academic attainment – should put you at greater risk of ill health”
Professor Jeremy Pearson Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation
They also speculate that well qualified people might be under less long-term stress, or be better able to deal with stress.
Professor Andrew Steptoe, from University College London, who led the study, said: “Education is a marker of social class that people acquire early in life, and our research suggests that it is long-term exposure to the conditions of lower status that promotes accelerated cellular ageing.”
Professor Steptoe’s team took blood from more than 400 men and women aged between 53 and 75.
They then measured the length of sections of DNA found at the ends of chromosomes.
These sections – called “telomeres” – cap chromosomes, protecting them from damage. Shorter telomeres are thought to be an indicator of faster ageing.
The results showed that people with lower educational attainment had shorter telomeres, indicating that they may age faster.
They also indicated that telomere length was not affected by a person’s social and economic status later in life, as was previously thought.
Professor Stephen Holgate, chairman of the Medical Research Council’s Population and Systems Medicine Board, said the key implication of the study backs up the main message from long-term studies funded by the Medical Research Council for over half a century.
“Your experiences early in life can have important influences on your health,” he explained.
“Whilst – as with all observational research – it is difficult to establish the root causes of the findings, this study does provide evidence that being educated to a higher level can benefit you more than in the job market alone.”
Professor Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said the research reinforces the need to tackle social inequalities to combat ill-health.
He said: “It’s not acceptable that where you live or how much you earn – or lesser academic attainment – should put you at greater risk of ill health.”
The researchers were based primarily at University College London, but also collaborated with experts at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff and the University of California, San Francisco.
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The government wants to reduce the number of long-term claimants of incapacity benefit Six charities say people with serious illnesses are being found “fit to work” under new sickness benefits tests – and are urging changes to the assessment.
The MS Society, Parkinson’s UK and others have urged changes to make the test “fairer” for people with illnesses where symptoms vary over time.
The Work Capability Assessment, currently being used for first-time claimants, is being reviewed.
The government says tests show the majority of new claimants can work.
People claiming Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) – which replaced incapacity benefit – for the first time now have to go through a new test, the WCA, which was introduced under the previous Labour government.
The test is also in the process of being rolled out to 2.6 million people who were already claiming disability benefits.
But it has proved controversial and tens of thousands of people have appealed against its findings – with many appeals being upheld.
The group of six charities, which also includes the National Aids Trust, Arthritis Care, the Forward-ME group and Crohn’s and Colitis UK, has published a report for consideration as part of Professor Malcolm Harrington’s independent review of the WCA.
They say people with illnesses like Parkinson’s, HIV or arthritis are “wrongly being found fit to work” after taking part in the assessment when applying for ESA.
“We would welcome more systematic research to determine whether, in reality, someone whose condition means intermittent and unpredictable working would be considered for employment in the real world”
Simon Gillespie Chief executive, MS Society
The charities recommended 12 changes to the current WCA, including amending wording of the test to ask whether claimants can complete “activities reliably, repeatedly and safely”, “within a reasonable amount of time”, and “without significant discomfort, breathlessness or fatigue”.
It suggests all claimants be invited to comment on how their condition affects them and suggests the Department for Work and Pensions develop a more specific definition of “work” based on the Australian system.
The report also says the severity and frequency of symptoms should be taken into account by assessors.
The charities said the WCA did not allow for people with symptoms that were worse on some days than others and points out that employers’ attitudes to such people “remain unclear”.
“We would welcome more systematic research to determine whether, in reality, someone whose condition means intermittent and unpredictable working would be considered for employment in the real world, although they might be considered ’employable’,” the report says.
Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the MS Society, said: “As charities, we have been inundated by concerns from people living with a long-term health condition who’ve wrongly been found fit to work.
“Many of them want to work, but may require extra support to do so. Ensuring that the assessment is fair and consistent is therefore a vital task.”
He said the report was just a first step and the charities were working alongside Professor Harrington and the Department for Work and Pensions on the issue.
The Work Capability Assessment determines whether applicants are entitled to the highest rate of ESA – for those deemed unable to work due to sickness or disability – or are considered “fit for work”, in which case they are put on Jobseeker’s Allowance instead.
It can also place applicants into a “work related activity group”, where they will be expected to take steps to prepare themselves for work.
Professor Harrington published a report on the WCA last November, which the government fully endorsed and says it is acting on all his recommendations. He is currently undertaking a second review on further issues around the assessments.
Last month the government released figures for assessments of people claiming ESA for the first time between October 2008 and August 2010.
The figures showed 887,300 of 1,175,700 people applying for employment and support allowance (ESA) between October 2008 and August 2010 failed to qualify – either because they were found “fit to work” or dropped their claim before it was completed.
Only 6% of claims – 73,500 people – were considered to be entitled to full ESA support.
Employment minister Chris Grayling said at the time many benefit claimants had been “simply abandoned on benefits” and would be reassessed and given specialist back-to-work support.
He said those who could not work would get “unconditional support” but for others it was “right and proper that they start back on the road to employment”.
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The Mississippi River has reached near-record levels as flooding continues to affect some southern US states.
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Margaret Thatcher’s resignation, Geoffrey Howe’s demotion and the Brighton IRA bomb – ministerial drivers were the silent witnesses at all these major events.
For many years, one group of people has had access to the most intimate secrets in government.
They have been invited into ministers’ families and private offices, uniquely seeing both their public and private faces.
In the process, they have literally found themselves sitting in the front seat while history is made.
Ministerial car driver Denis Oliver had just started driving Margaret Thatcher when the IRA bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton in 1984.
The Wheels of Power is on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday 11 March, 1100 BST
He was staying two floors above the prime minister’s room.
“I shot in to her room to see,” he recalls, “and she was just packing up all the papers in the box, all very methodically. And she said at the time, I’ll never forget, I said, ‘are you okay prime minister,’ and she said, ‘Yes, I’m amazed it hasn’t happened before.'”
Mr Oliver’s great friend and fellow driver Peter Smithson drove Sir Geoffrey Howe for 24 years. For him, the aftermath of the Brighton bomb involved a hair-raising drive.
“The SAS came with a car and they had a car in front and one behind, doing about 100mph. We even had police on bridges and motorway crossings and things like that, we were just flat out.”
But the horrific and the extraordinary often sit side by side with the mundane, and nothing illustrates this better than the drivers’ responses to the threat of violent attack.
Mrs Thatcher seemed emotional at conference but was cool in the immediate aftermath For much of the 1970s and 1980s, car bombs were the favoured means of attack by the IRA, which put them in great danger.
“The first thought when you got in and switched on was, ‘if I switch on and it goes bang, that’s it,'” remembers Margaret Narroway, a long-serving driver.
“That was always in your mind. After you’d switched on and it’d been running a little while you’d think ‘oh, we’re okay today’ and off you’d go. You just took it in your stride.”
Occupying a position that many an interested observer would relish, a driver’s proximity to senior ministers means they see the episodes that do not often make it into news reports or autobiography.
To be trusted with such a position demands responsibility and discretion. They are always careful not to tell too much, but having driven Mrs Thatcher for 14 years, Mr Oliver is able to reveal some of her quirks.
While most ministers make it a habit to run late, she apparently adopted the opposite policy – for example, leaving very early because she was always worried about leaving enough time to get to Windsor Castle to see the Queen.
“That was the only time a word wasn’t spoken in that car from the time we left Downing Street until she came out of Buckingham Palace”
Driver Denis Oliver on Mrs Thatcher’s final journey as prime minister
“We used to park in a lay-by by the Thames there,” he laughs, “and we used to spend three quarters of an hour there sometimes before we moved out to be on time for the castle.”
And then of course there was the time he discussed the poll tax with her.
“We had a little discussion about that in the car in actual fact,” he reveals. The two did not see eye to eye, the only time they ever disagreed, and of course history records that she did not change her plans.
Next door in the Foreign Office, in 1989, Sir Geoffrey beckoned in his driver, and told him that he was no longer the foreign secretary.
“He told me before anybody, and I said, ‘I don’t believe it,'” recalls Mr Smithson. Many outside agreed, but few had a good enough relationship with Howe to say what his driver told him next.
“I said to him, ‘Well if you’re no longer the foreign secretary what are you?’ And he says, ‘I’m leader of the House,’ and I said to him, ‘well that’s not a job,’ I mean I couldn’t help saying that.”
Little more than a year later, Mrs Thatcher herself fell.
This time, Sir Geoffrey had resigned and precipitated a leadership crisis in the Conservative Party.
One of the most famous images ever taken in Downing Street was of Mrs Thatcher, tears in her eyes, waving from the back of her car as she was driven from Downing Street for the last time.
Peter Smithson enjoyed a long stint with Geoffrey Howe Her driver was in the front seat that day, and still remembers that drive clearly.
“That was the only time a word wasn’t spoken in that car from the time we left Downing Street until she came out of Buckingham Palace,” Mr Oliver says. “Nobody spoke a word, not even DT – Denis Thatcher. It was silence in the car all the way up. It was quite an emotional drive, that.”
Not every drive was so emotional, and even at moments of history, more mundane concerns can be what captures the attention of those in the front seat.
In 1981, Norman Tebbit was being tipped to be employment secretary in the next reshuffle.
His driver, Beryl Osborne, known as Ossie, had her fingers crossed for his promotion, because she would be able to exchange her tatty old ministerial car for a bright new model.
When Tebbit emerged from Number 10, she asked him simply: “Have I got my car?” He nodded.
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Rising petrol prices in the US are expected to be one of the key issues in the 2012 presidential election. But Americans still pay half what Europeans fork out on the forecourt. So why is it such a big deal?
Whatever bounce President Barack Obama has received from Osama Bin Laden’s demise, there is a widespread belief that his fortunes at the ballot box in 18 months will be decided by two things.
Gas and jobs.
While the latest employment situation appears to be mixed – figures last week suggested both jobs and jobless rose in number – the president will be closely monitoring feelings on the forecourts of petrol stations across the US.
A survey published on Sunday by Lundberg said the price of a gallon of petrol, known as gas to Americans, had hit a nationwide average of $4 (£2.40), just 11 cents short of the record high in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis.
There has been some respite since the weekend, with prices reportedly falling by five cents in some places, but the anger felt by drivers shows no sign of abating.
At Tyson’s Corner Center, a huge shopping mall in northern Virginia, motorist after motorist said it was hurting them in everything they did – the commute, the weekly shop or the school run.
And worryingly for the faltering economic recovery – and the president – they said they were being forced to cut back on other spending to pay for gas.
“I notice the gas prices increase a lot because I spend about $200 a month on it. I’ve been driving for 10 years and this is the worse I’ve known it,” says Orgil Ganbold, 29, pictured in his Jaguar.
“I earn the minimum wage and half my pay cheque goes on gas,” says Aimen Idris, 20, who works in a shopping mall. “So I’m not eating out and not going out as much.”
“It doesn’t affect me so much because I live near where I work. But my friends talk about it a lot and my daughter hasn’t visited since spring break because she can’t afford the gas,” says Gloria Burtrago, 50.
“Of course it’s hurting, it’s $1.25 more than a year ago. I’m considering buying a bike and cycling the four miles to work,” says software engineer Pedro Alvarado, 25.
Drivers speaking from Tyson’s Corner, northern Virginia
The issue is so important that it is rarely out of the news, with TV bulletins continually monitoring the prices and analysts always on hand to discuss the consequences.
In Europe, prices are roughly double the US due to the tax, but the anger is not so palpable, and almost certainly not about to influence elections. A protest planned in the UK at the weekend drew only a fraction the number expected.
So what is it about the American relationship with gas that makes it such an important issue?
Americans use their cars more, so the pain is greater. They have, on average, a longer daily commute than all Europeans, except Hungarians and Romanians, and they have longer traffic jams.
But there is also a symbolic significance about gas that goes to the heart of what America is.
It signifies mobility, freedom and personal liberty, says Dan Neil, motoring correspondent on the Wall Street Journal.
“Anger is probably more tied up with a wider sense of decline and also a loss of privilege.
“Cheap gas has been one of the prerogatives of the American Empire so people have become accustomed to it in a way which is somehow associated with our ability to wield our will around the world.
American Petroleum Institute
“We’re mad because we’ve spent a lot of money in the Middle East and made a lot of enemies and defended a lot of tyrants and still gas prices go up.”
And knowing that the British pay double won’t make Americans feel any better, he adds.
“Americans are not aware of what the rest of the world pays for gas. We are a very big, inward-looking domestic market. We don’t watch soccer, we don’t watch French movies and we don’t really care what the Europeans pay for their gas.
“It’s a very big country and the entire infrastructure is predicated on scandalously cheap energy. Everything we do is big – business, agriculture, entertainment.
“The reason why the British public are more sanguine [than Americans] is firstly because that’s their nature”
Quentin Willson Motoring expert
“Where we live, where we play, all of that is predicated on cheap gas, so when the price of gas goes up, it really cuts to the heart of the American way of life.”
The long-term solutions, he says, would involve a huge investment in rail, an overhaul of the infrastructure and a change in mindset – not events that happen overnight.
In the UK, there is no sign that the nationwide fuel protests by lorry drivers 11 years ago will be repeated soon, despite petrol now being double the price.
At the weekend, a protest at an oil refinery in Stanlow, near Cheshire, failed to draw the 1,000 vehicles expected. Instead there were little more than 100.
“The reason why the British public are more sanguine [than Americans] is firstly because that’s their nature,” says motoring expert and broadcaster Quentin Willson.
“And secondly, the fuel protests of 2000 will never happen again because the cops have got wise to it. Haulage companies have been told that if they start blocking refineries, they’ll lose licences.”
But the anger is there, says Mr Willson, who led a delegation to Downing Street to complain about fuel duty, and people are near breaking point.
They are stopping him in the street to complain, he says, and some are having to choose between food and fuel.
Petrol sales are down by a fifth in the last year and breakdowns due to tanks running empty are up by 17% in the same period.
“We’re on the cusp of social unrest,” he predicts.
But petrol is unlikely to define a UK election. In the US, gas prices are a bellwether of consumer confidence, says Mr Neil, and will be more influential in 2012 than Bin Laden.
Republicans blame Obama for gas prices, while Democrats blame oil companies, and they’re both wrong, he says. It’s more complex, to do with US oil refineries running at capacity and speculators driving up the price of crude oil.
The one key driver behind rising prices is the price of crude oil, says John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute.
It’s increased in price by about $1.20 a gallon since August, he says, driven by increased global demand, especially in China and India, where more and more people are driving cars.
Source: Lundberg Survey
The portion of tax imposed by the federal government has not risen for several years, but there’s a big variation between states, illustrated on the CNN website, which reflects the duties imposed by states.
Rising oil prices mean bigger profits. Last month, Texas-based oil company Exxon announced profits of $10.7bn (£6.4bn), up 69% on last year. There was an outcry, given the pain felt by motorists.
Mr Obama has said he wants Congress to end the $4bn in annual tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.
Although this won’t affect prices at the pumps, he wants the money to be invested in clean energy sources.
But some of his critics say he should be doing more to liberate restrictions on American drilling.
Either way, as long as American drivers are feeling the pain at the pumps, the president will be wary of how that pain will play out at the polls.
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