scotsman cuttings

Home

News

Cuttings

Search

Personal

HENRY McLeish stands to net more than GBP 1 million of taxpayers' money from his single year in office as Scotland's first minister.

By the time he retires, the disgraced MSP will have raked in 1,001,773 pounds in salaries, expenses, pensions and one-off payments. After the age of 65, he will pick up a minimum of GBP 62,000 a year in pensions, even without allowing for inflation.

And should he take up a lucrative lecturing post in the United States, he can expect to earn upwards of another half a million pounds before retirement. Mr McLeish stood down as first minister in November last year and on Thursday he announced that he would stand down from the Scottish Parliament at the elections in May next year.

But yesterday pressure was growing on Mr McLeish to justify claiming so much money for his time in office and to explain why he claimed a one-off payment of GBP 36,000 when he left Westminster, despite telling MPs that he would not be accepting the money.

Henry McLeish took over as first minister on 27 October 2000 after the death of Donald Dewar, and remained in office for just over a year. He resigned on 8 November 2001, after a series of damaging revelations about his financial affairs, which culminated in his admission that he had wrongly claimed GBP 36,000 in allowances while renting out part of his constituency offices in Glenrothes.

During his time in office, Mr McLeish, 54, was paid GBP 68,159 a year as first minister, on top of his salary as an MSP. From the time of his appointment as first minister to the time he relinquishes his seat in May, he will have picked up in the region of GBP 120,000 for his work as an MSP.

But Mr McLeish was also being paid GBP 47,000 a year as an MP until he left Westminster six months later at the 2001 General Election, adding another GBP 23,500 to his total, and he would also have been able to claim expenses as an MP, equivalent to about GBP 26,000, based on the average MP's claim of GBP 52,000 a year.

On top of his salaries and expenses, Mr McLeish is also entitled to a GBP 34,000 a year index-linked pension for his time as first minister, in addition to a pension of about GBP 30,000 a year for his time as an MP, amounting to a minimum of GBP 704,000 by the time he retires.

And he will also have collected two one-off resettlement payments, GBP 24,114 for not returning to Holyrood after the next election and GBP 36,000 paid to MPs who left Westminster for Holyrood.

Yesterday Tommy Sheridan, the Scottish Socialist Party MSP, said Mr McLeish should stand down immediately and forgo the pension.

"It is an obscenity that he should claim GBP 34,000 a year after one year in office when his constituents get much less than that after 40 years.

"It is a further obscenity that he will be claiming the resettlement money for leaving Holyrood after claiming GBP 36,000 to move there in the first place."

He said he was angry that Mr McLeish had claimed the GBP 36,000, which he is said to have used to pay back the money he overclaimed in office allowances, after telling parliament that he would not do so.

The Scottish Conservative Party also criticised Mr McLeish for accepting so much money from taxpayers.

A spokesman said: "There is no doubt that by the letter of the rules he is entitled to every penny of this money but the question the public will be asking is 'Does he deserve it?, especially the GBP 34,000 a year pension for one year's work as first minister.

"The public is very uneasy about the pension he is picking up and the money he received for leaving Westminster.

"We would question whether these are the actions of a man who cares about the public purse or whether he just cares about himself."

Mr McLeish could also boost his earnings by taking up a post lecturing in the United States.

Previous registers of MPs' interests have revealed that he has lectured at Oklahoma State University, with his travel costs met by the university, and there are suggestions that he could now accept a lecturer's job for six months a year. Salaries at the university vary, but Mr McLeish could expect to pick up in excess of GBP 60,000 a year.

When he announced his decision to leave Holyrood, Mr McLeish said he planned to remain active in Scottish life, dividing his time between reading, writing, teaching, lecturing and projects which would contribute to social and economic advancement.

He could also supplement his earnings through working for one of the many quangos set up by the Scottish Executive, with members frequently picking up five figure sums for attending a couple of meetings a month.

But Mr McLeish still faces the possibility of criminal charges over the so -called Officegate affair which brought him down. A police investigation into the matter is continuing.

FOR the 700 or so partygoers lucky enough to be on the guest list for the opening party at Harvey Nichols's Edinburgh store, it should have been an absolutely fabulous evening.

There was music provided by celebrity DJs, glamour in the form of film stars and models, and all the champagne and cocktails they could quaff. For two of the young women who took advantage of the store's hospitality, however, the excitement of the evening appears to have proved just too much.

Jenny Frost, a member of the chart-topping pop band Atomic Kitten, and Hazel Mall, a photographer who graduated last year from the Glasgow College of Building and Printing, both rounded off the evening by complaining to police about each other's behaviour. Mall, 27, accused Frost of punching her in the face and giving her a black eye. Frost, 24, accused Mall of being abusive and insulting, and injuring herself by falling over.

Both told the police that the other woman was to blame. The police listened patiently and decided they would let the procurator-fiscal decide.

Yesterday, police sources suggested that both women had partaken freely of refreshments and although the alleged flashpoint had taken place earlier on Wednesday evening, they waited until they were leaving to complain.

A source said: "Jenny Frost said the other woman was harassing her all night and being a pain and fell over and hurt her own face. Hazel Mall said she was punched in the eye by Jenny Frost."

The pair had been among 700 people who worked their way through 700 bottles of champagne, 500 bottles of white wine, ten crates of vodka and 15,000 canapes at a party which had been billed as Scotland's social event of the year.

Organisers had flown up nearly 150 designers and celebrities from London so that hoi polloi could rub shoulders with the likes of actor Ewan McGregor, the former Bananarama singer Siobhan Fahey, the socialites Meg Mathews and Anabelle Neilson, and the singer Kylie Minogue's ex-boyfriend, James Gooding.

Frost, whose band, Atomic Kitten, is at the top of the pop music charts with a cover version of the Blondie song The Tide is High, should also have been enjoying the limelight.

Few people appear to have seen what happened, although the incident is said to have been witnessed by the James Bond and EastEnders star Goldie and Frost's boyfriend, DJ Dominic Thrupp. But according to her friends, her evening was ruined by the unwanted attention of Mall, whose published work includes the cover of an album by the folk group, the McCluskey Brothers.

One said: "Jenny was leaving the party with a group of friends when this girl, who was being verbally rude and aggressive, tried to push her way forward. She lunged at them and tripped up. That is how she sustained this bruise she claims to have.

"Jenny had one day off before flying back to London to record for Top of the Pops and decided to come to Scotland for this party because she loves fashion."

Mall, however, said she was punched by Frost and approached officers overseeing the departure of guests to make a complaint. Police are expected to examine security video footage in an attempt to get to the bottom of the accusations.

A Lothian and Borders Police spokesman said both women had been interviewed and a report would be sent to the procurator-fiscal. "We are carrying out an investigation into allegations of an assault at the Harvey Nichols party on Wednesday evening," he said.

A spokesman for Harvey Nichols said he was not aware of the investigation, although he did recall someone having to leave the party after falling over on the dance floor.

It is the second time Frost has been accused of striking another woman. In April she was reported to have slapped her assistant, Michelle Barrett.

SMOKED salmon is super and lobsters are lovely, but there comes a time in the life of even the most sophisticated gourmand when the only fish supper that truly hits the spot is one which comes in batter and smothered in brown sauce.

For the Duke and Duchess of Wessex that moment arrived last week, coinciding, as luck would have it, with the absence of anyone to cook dinner for them. The couple, who have struggled to endear themselves to the public, found that their presence at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh did not apparently merit the services of a chef for the evening. But what to do? The likes of The Witchery and the new Harvey Nicks brasserie may have been but a stone's throw away, but anyone who has ever attempted to book a restaurant table in the middle of the festival knows better than to risk such humiliation.

The solution? Summon the chauffeur, furnish him with the folding currency and send him out to the Royal Mile in search of sustenance.

According to palace sources, the couple dined heartily on the finest fish and chips the capital had to offer, although whether they rounded off their supper with a deep fried Mars Bar is not known.

Buckingham Palace declined to elaborate on Prince Edward's eating habits, but a palace source said: "They were expecting to dine in, but there was no-one to cook for them. So the prince ... sent the chauffeur up the Royal Mile to fetch a couple of fish suppers. Perhaps they just decided that now they are off the civil list they should exhibit a little bit of financial prudence."

Sadly, as the man from the palace did not advertise his presence, the Royal Mile's chippies can shed no further light on Edward and Sophie's dietary requirements. Plaice, haddock or jumbo fish cake, it must remain a royal mystery.

SHE may have lived her life like a candle in the wind but the passage of five years appears to have done little to snuff out the memory of Princess Diana in the minds of the British public.

Eschewing the likes of the First and Second World Wars, it appears that a public - which yesterday managed to place Robbie Williams among its list of all-time great Britons - now considers the death of the Princess of Wales to be the single most important event in the last century of British history.

No-one appears to have spared a thought for the death of that other junior European Royal, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which precipitated not a carpet of flowers but a world war which wiped out a generation.

Nor did anyone appear to have considered the possibility that the English football team's defeat of Germany in the 1966 World Cup final may not have been quite so important in the scale of world events as, say, Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928. Instead, a poll compiled by the History Channel placed the English team's victory sixth in the scale of importance, two places above the murder of John Lennon. Even the so-called experts appear to be struggling to come to grips with the history of the 20th century. The satellite broadcaster's own publicity material accompanying the poll asserts that the Second World War ended on 6 August, 1945 with the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, ignoring the bombing of Nagasaki three days later and foreshortening the war by more than a week.

But according to Dr Trevor Griffiths, a social historian at Edinburgh University, an inability to grasp the true significance of historical events is nothing new.

"Popular historical memory tends to focus on the big emotive events even if their long-term significance has little effect. I suspect that if you asked people 20 years ago, the list would have been quite similar."

The survey, which questioned more than 1,000 people, found that the death of Princess Diana was considered the most important event in British history, followed by the start of the Second World War and the decision to give some women the vote in 1918, although Scots placed the Good Friday agreement third in their list.

In the list of major world events in the past 100 years, the 11 September attacks were judged most significant, ahead of the dropping of the first atomic bomb and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But Dr Griffiths said he believed that the list reflected a contemporary view of history, and one which was unlikely to stand the test of time.

"They are dramatic and self contained stories and the royal thing gives us a sense of personal focus. The Diana thing reflects the cult of personality and glamour, but I am amazed that it is still in the list."

The full results of the survey suggest that modern-day Britons have a greater link to more recent televised events than those they have read about in history books at school.

Nearly a quarter of respondents (22 per cent) voted the death of Princess Diana in August 1997 a more significant date in British history than the end of World War I (8 per cent) or the start of the Falklands War (4 per cent).

Nearly half of all respondents (41 per cent) voted the 11 September attacks as the most significant date in world history in the last 100 years, far outstripping the dropping of an atomic bomb over Hiroshima (19 per cent), the landing of the first man on the moon (9 per cent) and the assassination of US President John F Kennedy (2 per cent).

FIRST Tony Blair had to put up with the indignity of Germaine Greer passing comment on his love life, and now James Naughtie, the broadcaster, has pitched in to divulge more insights into those parts of the Prime Minister's life he would rather keep to himself.

Naughtie, who presents the Today programme on Radio 4, chose a talk at the Edinburgh International Book Festival yesterday to cast new light on the problems and privations of prime ministerial travel.

Foreign toilets can be a nightmare for the most seasoned of travellers, but it appears that even someone with as many air miles as Mr Blair was not quite prepared for the lack of sanitary facilities that greeted him when he flew into Bagram airbase in Afghanistan earlier this year. Mr Blair's trip to Afghanistan in January was the first by a western leader and was conducted in the greatest of secrecy. To further safeguard the Prime Minister's security, he was flown in a military Hercules aircraft.

According to Naughtie, a member of the organising party approached Mr Blair to remind him of the deficiencies in the toilet facilities aboard the Hercules, which consisted of a bucket behind a curtain.

"You may want to use the facilities before you depart," the Prime Minister was informed.

Accepting that this seemed an eminently sensible suggestion, Mr Blair was led off towards Bagram's answer to the en suite bathroom - a patch of grass to the side of the runway, surrounded by minefields.

Instead of a fully-equipped toilet block, he was confronted with a narrow drain running away into the darkness.

"What do I do now?" he inquired of his escort, who duly explained the technicalities of al fresco micturation in battlefield conditions. Pausing only to ask for some form of illumination, Mr Blair did what he had to do.

"The last thing we saw was the PM standing in a field trying to aim into a drain by the light of a torch held by a member of the Royal Engineers," said Naughtie.

GREER'S MESSAGE TO THE PM: 'STOP ACTING LIKE A GORILLA AND LEAVE CHERIE ALONE'

GERMAINE Greer launched an extraordinary attack on Tony Blair's marriage yesterday, accusing him of behaving like a dominant male gorilla and urging him to give up his sex life for the good of his wife.

Speaking just a week after Cherie Blair was discharged from hospital after suffering a miscarriage, the feminist writer claimed that the Prime Minister paraded his wife in public to reinforce his heterosexual credentials.

And Ms Greer, who is best known as the author of The Female Eunuch, described the sexual politics of the Labour party as "Neanderthal".

She told an audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival: "The marriage of our very own Prime Minister is an interesting case in point. It seems to me that that's a very odd relationship." Referring to Cherie Blair's latest pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage, she said: "I want to say to him 'Leave her alone, for Christ's sake.'

"She's 47 years old, she doesn't practise contraception because she's a Catholic - stay off her, it's pretty simple. What are you going to do, wait till she dies?

"It seems to me they have contrasting notions of their duty to each other and that is very common in marriages."

There was widespread public sympathy when it was announced last week that Cherie Blair has suffered a miscarriage. Her previous pregnancy, which resulted in the birth of their fourth child, Leo, prompted a debate about the wisdom and practicality of pregnancy in later life.

But Ms Greer, who was at the festival to promote a book of poetry by women writers, was critical of the way the Blairs conducted themselves in public.

She said: "I find this government hilarious in the sense that the top honcho appears always with his wife as a pledge of his heterosexual activity. We've had enough of those pledges, you can leave her at home. In fact, she's got an important job to do, I just wish she'd bloody well go off and do it for a change."

And she likened the way the Labour Party treated wives to the behaviour of a band of gorillas led by a dominant silverback male.

"Everybody else appears without his consort because they're all junior males and we've only got one silverback.

"John Prescott used to be allowed to produce his wife but you'll notice that she hasn't been paraded for a long time so we don't want to know about his heterosexuality, he's been relegated to junior status.

"Then we've got all the men who are still living with their mothers and will probably never marry who are very useful acolytes in the train of the silverback. The sexual politics of the Labour Party always were Neanderthal and they still are. At least the Tories are just straightforward, sexually perverse and corrupt."

Ms Greer, speaking to a sell-out audience, also used the one-hour festival appearance to criticise the way in which rape is dealt with in Britain and to call for legislation to produce an effective law to tackle sexual assault.

"We have police forces under pressure to accept rape complaints and follow them up and we have completely hopeless amounts of money spent and a terrible low conviction rate because a certain kind of violence against women, a certain kind of overriding of women's autonomy, is endemic in a heavy drinking population," she said. "Women are overridden or find themselves making dishonourable bargains for a peaceful life. All of this is the real dimension of rape.

"Instead we end up with really stupid cases of girls who get drunk and take their clothes off and get into bed with a man who is probably equally drunk, sex occurs and then we find we've got a front page rape trial which just strikes us all as kind of daft.

"You begin to wonder whether police are deliberately taking cases that they cannot win in order to prove that the law is unworkable, because the law is unworkable. We need a workable law of sexual assault which will take some recognition of the gravity of an assault against a person and the morale of that person."

During the question and answer session, Ms Greer also restated her opposition to the idea of marriage, but spoke out in support of working mothers.

"The problem with being a working mum these days is that you just feel you are letting everybody down and you feel inadequate and frazzled and fed up and disgusted with yourself, you're supposed to be a perfect lover, a perfect mother, a perfect middle management person and it's too much, and we really have to have a support system for mothers otherwise we won't have any mothers," she said.

A couple of hours later Mo Mowlam, the former Northern Ireland Secretary, also used an appearance at the Book Festival to attack Tony Blair and the Labour Party, criticising plans for war on Iraq and warning that the power struggle between Mr Blair and Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, was damaging the party.

Asked whether Parliament should be recalled to discuss a possible conflict in Iraq, she said: "Well they should and we shouldn't go in, it's as simple as that. You don't beat terrorists by bombing and shooting. All that does is increase work for the recruitment officers for terrorists." Ms Mowlam said she was "signed up" for the New Labour project but she insisted the Government had become too centralised.

She added: "It's not that they don't accept dissent, it's just that there's a very small clique, an elite, which I described as something like a law form where there's four or five people deciding what's happening and it just filters down. That's not politics."

Asked whether she thought there was a power struggle between Mr Blair and Mr Brown, she said: "The gang of two - it's a problem." She added: "I think they have got to sort it out. If Gordon and Tony keep arguing and fighting each other and announcing things without telling each other, they won't do any good."

During the talk to promote her new book - Momentum - Ms Mowlam also spoke about the Northern Ireland peace process, claiming that Unionists attempted to undermine her position and that of Peter Mandelson when he was in office and that they were now attempting to do the same to John Reid, the current Northern Ireland Secretary.

And she singled out UK Unionist Bob McCartney as the only person involved in the peace process who she was prepared to criticise in public.

"Bob McCartney has no socially redeeming value at all. McCartney is a shit," she said.

A WOMAN may have been involved in the abduction of missing schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, one of Britain's leading criminal psychologists claimed yesterday.

Ian Stephen said the girls could have been targeted by a group of people, who they may well have known, and are almost certainly still together.

The Edinburgh-based psychologist, who advised on the television crime dramas Cracker, Prime Suspect and A Touch of Frost, said he had not given up hope that they were still alive and would eventually be returned home safely. "Though I cannot deny the possibility that we could be looking at a double tragedy, I am confident that being there for each other will have helped these girls through their ordeal," he said.

But he said it was unlikely that the girls had been picked up off the street at random.

"A woman could even have been involved - remember, Ian Brady was reliant on Myra Hindley," he said.

Yesterday, a week after the girls disappeared, two men arrested in connection with the disappearance of the girls were released without charge and Cambridgeshire police appeared to be no closer to finding the pair than they were the previous Sunday.

Detectives are now convinced the girls were abducted but continue to voice the belief that they are still alive.

Direct appeals for the release of the girls have drawn a blank and officers yesterday were stopping motorists driving into and out of the town in a fresh trawl for people who were in the area at the time the girls went missing.

Officers questioned drivers entering and leaving the town, starting just after 5pm, 45 minutes before the girls are thought to have left Holly's home the previous week. The motorists were handed leaflets containing photographs of the ten-year-olds.

Police said later they had stopped more than 700 drivers in three hours and that the response had been "fantastic".

Det Chief Insp Andy Hebb said: "The public have been very supportive and helpful."

Earlier, the families of the missing girls attended a communion service in their local parish church to pray for their safe return.

Holly's parents, Kevin and Nicola, and Jessica's mother, Sharon, were joined by more than 15 of their family and friends at the church. They spoke and embraced each other after the moving service, and Mr Wells, 38, gave thanks for the support they had received.

"We drew a lot of strength from the service," he said. "We are bearing up, thank you for your support."

Well-wishers have lit candles for the pair at the church as more than 300 police scoured the town for any sign of the two best friends.

The Rev Tim Alban Jones, who led the service, said Soham had never expected such terrible events and said the two families were enduring a "living nightmare." He led prayers for the safe return of the schoolgirls and said their plight had raised theological questions about the nature of evil and about God.

"How could God allow something like this to happen? There may be some anger directed at God and certainly there is appropriate anger directed at whoever has done such a vile deed," he said, adding that he believed God was with Holly and Jessica wherever they were.

A CAMPAIGN of criticism and backstabbing aimed at the commander of British troops in Afghanistan had a damaging effect on the morale of the men serving under him, it is claimed today.

One of the chaplains who accompanied the Royal Marines on their operations says they were frustrated and disgusted by apparent attempts by unnamed Ministry of Defence officials and some newspapers to undermine and replace their commanding officer, Brigadier Roger Lane. In May, the Sunday Telegraph carried a report from a "senior MoD official" claiming Operation Jacana was becoming a farce and Brig Lane was a man out of his depth who should be removed from his post. Amid the claims and counter claims, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, felt obliged to publicly deny there were any plans to remove Brig Lane from his job.

Now, the Rev Mike Hills, a chaplain who was attached to 45 Commando, has revealed that the attacks on the popular commander did more to damage the morale of the troops than any of the dangers they faced in the field.

"To have him bad-mouthed unfairly was the source of much disgust among the troops," he said. "It was total nonsense but it did actually get to them because we were a soft target in that there was no way we could respond .

"They were disappointed by the hammering that Brig Roger Lane took because that was unwarranted and he is held in great regard by his men because he came from the bottom rung and rose to the top."

Last month, Brig Lane hit back at his critics and defended the performance of the troops under his command, saying it was unrealistic to expect the Marines to come back with Osama bin Laden's head on a plate.

FACING an elusive enemy, in difficult and unfamiliar territory and with weapons that many felt they could not trust, Britain's Royal Marines had enough on their plates in Afghanistan.

They had already been warned to expect casualties; many believed that at least some of their number would be going home in body bags.

What they did have going for them was that, in Brigadier Roger Lane, they had a popular leader who believed in the capabilities of those serving under him.

But with little to show for their efforts on the ground, what the marines did not need was to discover that shadowy figures back home in the UK were plotting to undermine and remove the man who commanded their unswerving loyalty. Three months ago, however, reports began to filter through to the men on the ground that unnamed Ministry of Defence sources were briefing against Brigadier Lane in an apparent attempt to have him removed from his command.

On 19 May, the Sunday Telegraph published a report quoting an unnamed senior MoD official blaming Brigadier Lane for falling morale among the troops.

"Brigadier Lane is a man out of his depth and should be sacked," the official was reported to have said. "The whole operation is quickly becoming a farce. I don't think there would be too much of a furore if he should go, in my opinion it would be a one-day wonder.

"The marines have a morale problem and the only way to get rid of it is to get rid of the man at the top.

"Brigadier Lane has lost the confidence of his men, his junior commanders and his tactical decisions look increasingly like the actions of a man desperate for some success."

According to a chaplain, the Rev Mike Hills, one of a team of chaplains who travelled to Afghanistan with the marines, it was the last thing they needed.

Up to that point, they had been happy to put up with whatever was thrown at them; they showed no fear under fire and had adapted well to the unexpected role of assisting, rather than fighting, the local population.

But Mr Hills, who was attached to the Arbroath-based 45 Commando, said criticism of Brigadier Lane had an unsettling effect on the marines.

"To have him bad-mouthed unfairly was the source of much disgust and upset among the troops," he said.

He singled out the Sunday Telegraph for particular criticism, adding: "It was total nonsense, but it did actually get to them because we were a soft target in that there was no way we could respond to any of that, and it was just unnecessary.

"They were disappointed by the hammering that Brigadier Roger Lane took because that was unwarranted. He is held in great regard by his men because he came from the bottom rung and rose to the top, and so they know he is a man who understands and who will go to the wall for his people."

The Sunday Telegraph report triggered a week of confused messages about Brigadier Lane's future. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, found himself obliged to defend his man in the field, only for the MoD to confirm that the brigadier would be going - and then finally announce that he would stay until the end of the operation.

Despite criticism of the marines' failure to engage Taleban or al-Qaeda forces, Mr Hills said the row over Brigadier Lane's future was the only time he saw their morale suffer.

"The mortars were regularly coming in so we just had to move our site further back out of range. Thankfully, they weren't very good at their job - they were getting nearer and nearer but we were in no immediate danger."

He praised the marines for the way they responded to the other challenges thrown at them. "It was a real privilege to work with them. They are very good at what they do, but there is another side to them that I see a lot of."

And he revealed that the decision to use the marines on humanitarian missions had changed some of their attitudes towards the local population.

"A lot of our lads were quite struck by the poverty of the local people and the status of women was quite an eye opener for them," he said. "They went out with the perception that they weren't going to see any of the locals, they were just going to attack the Taleban and come home again. Then it turned into a mixed bag of quite dangerous activity followed by humanitarian stuff and they actually got to see how people lived, and sampled the local hospitality.

"They actually liked it, they got used to engaging with another culture. I was very impressed with lads who had grown up way beyond their years in a very short period of time."

ON SUNDAY night, Cherie Blair was pictured looking glum in the pouring rain at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester: it was the last time she was seen in public before she was admitted to hospital the following day after suffering a miscarriage.

It was the end of another busy week for the mother of four who - typically - had given no sign of easing up on her hectic schedule despite the knowledge, shared with her husband Tony Blair, that she was pregnant again at the age of 47.

Three days earlier, she had found herself obliged to perform again for the cameras, sheltering from the rain under an umbrella while fielding questions at the start of a long weekend break in Cumbria with her husband and children.

She told reporters she had been to a birds of prey centre with her children. She insisted the Blairs were having a fine time, despite the dismal weather, with her customary big smile and good humour. She would have been kept informed on the latest developments in the Gurkhas' case against the government for racial discrimination, a case in which Mrs Blair - appearing in her professional guise as Cherie Booth QC - is representing the former soldiers. The Gurkhas won the right to move their case on to the next stage; again, she will have her day in court.

After the Commonwealth Games, thoughts turned to the family's next holiday in France. As usual, there was intense media interest. The Daily Telegraph reported that the only bar in Le Vernet in the Haute-Garonne would be closed for the Blairs' stay, as they rented out a chateau in the area.

She leads a busy life, and a very public life - and then there are her responsibilities as a mother of four. Many women of her age would be terrified at the prospect of dealing with a child in the grips of the terrible twos, never mind the difficulties that three rapidly-changing teenagers bring.

Such a packed agenda would be a challenge for anyone and although Mrs Blair won't like it, the question on the lips of many people today is unavoidable: did her busy lifestyle as a leading QC, part-time judge and wife of the Prime Minister make her more susceptible to a miscarriage than a woman in a less high-profile and pressurised position?

Cherie Booth was always a high achiever. Born on 23 September, 1954, in Bury, Lancashire, she was one of the stars at her convent school, Seafield Grammar, and gained four A grades in her A-levels. She also attended the London School of Economics.

In 1970, at the age of 16, she joined the Labour Party and in 1983, she unsuccessfully fought Thanet North, the rock-solid Tory Kent seat.

But it was as a lawyer that she found the most success. She earned an estimated GBP 200,000 a year carving out a successful career specialising in public and employment law.

Although she usually lets her husband do the talking in public, she remains politically committed with a deep social conscience. She landed in trouble earlier this year when she appeared to voice sympathy for Palestinian suicide bombers hours after a suicide bomb attack on a school bus killed 19 Israelis. The Israeli Embassy criticised her comments that young Palestinians "feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up" and she was forced to apologise.

The couple met when they worked together as trainees in the chambers of Derry Irvine, who was to become Mr Blair's Lord Chancellor. They married in 1980 in Mr Blair's old college chapel at St John's, Oxford, and had children, Euan, now 18, Nicky, 16, and Kathryn, 14.

But Mrs Blair has not enjoyed the limelight that the marriage has brought and she has found the public interest in her private life intrusive. Her intense devotion to the right of herself and her family to a private life has produced tensions between herself and some sections of the media, notably over the question of photographs of her children and whether Leo had received the MMR jab.

Like it or not, however, Mrs Blair's high profile will again prompt widespread debate on the wisdom and practicality of late pregnancies.

Despite the dangers, Mrs Blair has resolutely refused to slow down. She has won praise from many quarters for the way in which she has succeeded in combining parenthood with her legal career and the pressure and duties that go with being the wife of the Prime Minister.

Even a right-wing magazine such as the Spectator felt moved to observe: "She is a powerhouse, a model of what British women can achieve in the new millennium, while not abandoning her motherhood."

News of her pregnancy with Leo had caused a sensation as it was to be the first baby born to a serving British Prime Minister in more than a century. But even a week before his birth, she was still working.

Concerns that her age could make the pregnancy difficult and increase the chance of there being problems with the baby proved unfounded and she gave birth to a healthy Leo at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

What may surprise some people more than the news of the miscarriage, however, is the very fact that Mrs Blair was pregnant at all.

When news that she was pregnant with Leo first broke - leaked to a tabloid newspaper by the publicist Max Clifford - Mr Blair was said to be "totally stunned" that she was expecting another baby.

Downing Street sources described the baby as a complete accident and as the congratulations poured in Mrs Blair confessed that she, too, had been taken by surprise by the discovery that she was to be a mother again at the age of 45.

The announcement of her pregnancy provoked speculation about how - aside from the obvious basic mechanics - she had become pregnant.

A 47-year-old woman trying for a baby would probably only have a 10 per cent chance of becoming pregnant, but whether the Blairs were indeed trying for a fifth child or were caught out for the second time in two years may never be known.

WHOEVER said there was no such thing as bad publicity clearly never contemplated how a spot of streaking, in aid of selling a few more mobile phones, could ruin a game of international rugby.

But Vodafone, the UK-based mobile phone giant, stands accused of doing just that, after becoming embroiled in what must go down as one of the most ill -judged advertising stunts of all time.

With time ticking away in the all-important Bledisloe Cup clash between Australia and New Zealand in Sydney, the All Blacks were awarded a penalty. As the crowd held its breath, the fly-half, Andrew Mehrtens, lined up a kick which would almost certainly have won them the match. But as Mehrtens steadied himself and looked up, he found himself confronted by two streakers, with the logo of Vodafone daubed on their backs and chests, cavorting in front of him.

By the time police caught the pair, Mehrtens's concentration was gone. He missed the kick, which would have added another three points to the All Blacks' total, giving them a 17-16 victory.

The miss meant New Zealand lost 16-14 - and left Vodafone facing some very awkward questions.

Not only was Saturday's match being played in a stadium sponsored by Telstra, Vodafone's main rival, but Vodafone is also the sponsor of the Australian Wallabies team.

Fans of the All Blacks suspected that they had been the victims of an act of corporate-inspired sporting skulduggery.

But when Grahame Maher, the head of the company's Australian arm, admitted that he had offered to pay the streakers' fines before they ran on to the pitch, it was not just the fans who started asking questions.

The Sydney police superintendent, Allan Wilson, said officers were investigating whether the company should face charges.

"There are appropriate laws, appropriate penalties as well, in relation to anyone who incites or encourages any criminal offences, so that law is in place and we wish to have that as a deterrent in future," he said.

"I was at the game and it happened fairly quickly, it was obvious they had paintings on their chest and on their backs.

"I think it's bad publicity for the game itself, and I think that what went on was an unlawful stunt, if that's the reasoning behind it, but that's yet to be determined."

Faced with an unfolding public relations disaster, Mr Maher denied that he had been party to the men's plans, but he confessed that a man he knew only as Brett had approached him last week saying he might pull an illegal stunt at the match which would give Vodafone publicity.

"We said whatever you want to do, if it is good for us we would love to be involved," he said.

But Mr Maher, who is apparently well known for his publicity stunts, added: "This is not what we wanted to happen, this is not the outcome we expected. I'm apologising for my part in it, which was taking the call and encouraging him to do something."

Questioned further by the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Mr Maher admitted that although he had not known what the men were planning, he had agreed to pay the fine.

"He said he had some ideas about what he could do to get some international television exposure at Telstra Stadium, and if he did and it cost a fine, would I pay it? And I said sure. And, lo and behold, it then happened."

Vodafone advertises in New Zealand under the slogan "The old rules are gone", and with feelings running high over the streaker stunt, it may now be regretting the rest of its advertising blurb, which promises: "We're making huge changes in the way we do things at Vodafone. We're going to revolutionise the way people use mobiles in New Zealand."

Yesterday, Vodafone UK said it was clear that if the company had known what the pair were intending, it would not have sanctioned their action.

"People who get to the position that Graham has got to, do have some commonsense, and I know that if Graham had any idea of what was being planned he would have said 'no way' and dissociated ourselves entirely," said a spokesman.

"The incident is clearly regrettable, and it was in no way any sort of official Vodafone sponsorship," the spokesman stressed. "I'd like to think that most of our customers would not think this was a Vodafone-arranged stunt."

Police said a 22-year-old man has been charged with three offences, including "full and obscene" exposure, while a second man was given on-the-spot fines for acting in an indecent manner.

The men ran on to the field during the second half of Saturday night's game wearing nothing but a red Vodafone logo painted on their backs and chests. Pitch invaders who run on to the field at major sporting events in Sydney can be fined up to GBP 1,800.

Vodafone has now apologised to the Australian Rugby Union, which said it had accepted the apology.

Brian Thorburn, the ARU's general manager of commercial operations, said: "Vodafone have been an outstanding sponsor. In this instance, there has been an error of judgment in relation to a promotion and we have accepted an apology in that regard. We have not lost sight of the real culprits in this episode. The pair will be dealt with by the law."

IT WAS the lip mark on the saucepan full of Mabel Leyshon's blood that finally convinced police that they were dealing with something truly out of the ordinary.

For weeks, they had struggled to come up with an explanation why someone would stab the frail 90-year-old more than 20 times in the back and chest before ripping out her heart.

Forensic tests on the saucepan provided the answer. Obsessed with vampires and desperate to join the ranks of the undead, Mathew Hardman, a teenage art student, had butchered the pensioner and drunk her blood. But Hardman wasn't much of a vampire, and he certainly wasn't much of a master criminal. He left his footprints at the scene, his DNA on the windowsill of Mrs Leyshon's home and her blood on the handle of a knife police found in his pocket.

Yesterday, as the 17-year-old was jailed for a minimum of 12 years for the murder of his elderly neighbour, the judge at Mold Crown Court concluded that Hardman was sane, but possibly suffering from some underlying mental problems. Schoolmates described him as a quiet boy, who stayed in most of the time.

On Anglesey, there was not much else for him to do. Hardly a thriving social centre, the small island separated from the mainland of North Wales by the Menai Straits has an ageing population. It boasts the longest place name in Britain, but its reputation as a haven for caravaners and holidaymakers on a tight budget offers little in the way of excitement for younger residents. For a solitary 17-year-old with an active imagination, it was a fertile breeding ground for fantasy.

As police delved deeper into the background of their suspect, they stepped into a twilight world peopled by other loners and oddballs convinced that they were in some way part of a worldwide vampire community.

Internet links retrieved from his computer showed he had logged on to websites under such titles as The Vampire Rights Movement and The Vampire/Donor. In their chatrooms and on their message boards, would-be vampires discussed their cravings and their belief that they were in some way different from other mortals.

"The site exists to serve all who might be part of vampire community," read one website. "Gothic lifestyle vampires and non-lifestyle vampires alike, energy feeders, sanguinarians (drinkers of blood); donors, would-be donors, and other loved ones."

One website even purported to demonstrate scientific proof of the existence of vampires.

In Hardman's bedroom there was a hoard of books and magazines concerned with vampirism; his dyslexia does not appear to have prevented him reading the articles on how to cook and eat human flesh and how to create a Black Mass.

He made his gruesome fantasy a reality on the night of 24 November last year, when his widowed mother, a nurse, and her partner were away for the weekend.

On the Saturday night Hardman, wearing gloves, walked the few hundred yards from his home to Mrs Leyshon's bungalow. Sitting in her favourite armchair, her back to the lounge door watching television with the sound turned up because of her deafness, she appears not to have heard a thing as Hardman threw a slate through the bottom glass panel of the back door and bent down to ease himself into the kitchen.

Inside, he launched a ferocious attack on the woman with a knife he had taken from the kitchen of his own home. After the killing, Hardman dragged Mrs Leyshon's body to a different chair and propped her legs on a stool. Then he arranged two brass pokers in the shape of a cross on the floor in front of the pensioner's body, placed two candlesticks near the corpse and balanced a candle on the mantelpiece.

He sliced Mrs Leyshon's chest open and cut her heart out before wrapping the blood-soaked organ in newspaper and putting it in a brown enamel saucepan taken from her kitchen. The saucepan was then placed on a silver platter.

Hardman also made three deep gashes in the back of Mrs Leyshon's leg and drained some of her blood into the same saucepan, from which he then drank.

The murder was discovered the following day when worried neighbours called police. Detective decided early on that they were looking for a loner, who was probably local - no suspicious vehicles had been seen in the area - and someone who might not be known to police.

It was not until five weeks later, in late December, that forensic tests uncovered the lip marks on the saucepan and officers recalled that Hardman had earlier been arrested after accusing a 16-year-old German girl student, whom he had befriended, of being a vampire, and begging her to bite him so he could become one too.

And it was Hardman's words to the girl which revealed his true intentions: "Llanfairpwll is a perfect place for vampires because there is lots of old people," he told the girl, "and if they got bitten and died, everyone would think they died of a heart attack. If I killed somebody, maybe an old person, it wouldn't matter too much ... kill him after I got bitten a am I a vampire then?"

Through 16 hours of interview, Hardman showed no sympathy for his victim. When asked if there was anything he wanted shortly after he had been charged, he asked for a Big Mac and fries.

In court yesterday even Mr Justice Richards appeared at a loss to understand why the teenager had done what he did: "Why you should have acted in this way is difficult to comprehend but I am drawn to the conclusion that vampirism had indeed become a near obsession with you, that you really did believe that this myth may be true, that you did think that you would achieve immortality by the drinking of another person's blood and you found this an irresistible attraction."

SHE may have been the nation's favourite Royal, but a peek inside the Castle of Mey reveals that in matters of taste, the Queen Mother was no different from any grandmother with a passion for floral prints and tacky souvenirs.

Furry gonks, tartan Loch Ness monsters, pictures of pets and the sort of cheap, china ornaments which grandmothers are wont to collect are dotted around the rooms of the 16th-century castle on the southern shore of the Pentland Firth.

When the doors of the Queen Mother's summer bolt-hole open to the public for the first time in a fortnight, anyone expecting a glimpse into a world of wealth and opulence is in for a big surprise. Don't think palatial, grandiose, elegant; try instead small, cosy and eclectic. "In the public mind, castles mean big and Royal castles mean grand," said Martin Leslie, a long-time factor at the castle and a man keen not to raise visitors' expectations too high. "This is a very, very small castle. It's a comfortable place which Her Majesty fell in love with and was the only home which she owned."

The Queen Mother first saw the then near-derelict 30-room castle when she visited friends in Caithness in 1952, and lavished a small fortune turning it into a cherished home. She then stamped her character on its interior.

Small furry gonks and novelty animals peer out from the top of paintings and tapestries dotted around the castle. A tartan Loch Ness monster sits on top of a striking 16th century Flemish wall tapestry in the drawing room. In the library, a teddy bear "stag" stares down from a wall. A toy sheep occupies the space behind the Queen Mother's favourite chair, while on a mantelpiece, there is a small china figure of a Scotsman, apparently the worse for wear, clutching a lamp post.

The cost of running the castle, six miles west of John o'Groats, was never cheap, and it was said to be so damp that it needed redecorating every year.

In 1996, it was handed over to a charitable trust, along with its 2,000-acre estate and the Queen Mother's prize-winning herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle. Another GBP 1 million has been spent on restoration. It will open doors to the public on 14 August.

The Queen Mother's bedroom will remain off limits, but the trust is hoping the glimpse into her private life will be enough to tempt tourists to part with the GBP 5 admission fee, which will be introduced from 6 September.

If that does not bring in enough cash to pay for the upkeep of the castle, it may turn out that the Queen Mother is not the last person to make the Castle of Mey her home.

Yesterday, Lord Thurso, one of the trustees, revealed that the trust was considering the possibility of renting the building out to a "sympathetic" tenant who would ensure it remained a "happy and vibrant" place.

FOUR fast-food giants are facing legal action from US customers who claim they were unaware that the burgers, fries, thick shakes and fried chicken they had been guzzling for years were unhealthy and may even have made them fat.

McDonald's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Wendy's have all been accused of misleading consumers by enticing them with greasy, salty and sugary meals.

In a lawsuit filed at the Bronx Supreme Court, New York, seven overweight Americans accused the fast-food firms of knowingly serving meals that cause obesity and disease. "The fast-food industry has wrecked my life. I was conned, I was fooled, I was tricked," said Caesar Barbar, a maintenance supervisor. Mr Barbar, 5ft 10ins tall and weighing 20 stone, has had two heart attacks and suffers from diabetes.

He said he regularly ate at the four fast-food franchises until 1996, when a doctor warned his diet could kill him. "I always thought it was good for you. I never thought there was anything wrong with it," he added.

Samuel Hirsch, the lawyer representing the group, said he believed millions of fans of junk food could be eligible for payouts from the companies.

Six in ten Americans are now classified as overweight or obese, and more than 300,000 deaths each year in the country are attributed to obesity-related illnesses. Obesity has been estimated to cost the US economy GBP 76 billion a year.

So serious is the problem that President George Bush has spoke out on the subject, urging Americans to eat more healthily and to try to include five servings of fresh fruit or vegetables in their daily diet.

The fast-food companies are also under fire from US legislators, with senators Bill Frist and Jeff Bingaman due to introduce a bill authorising federal agencies to spend more money educating the public on the dangers of excess weight and the benefits of healthy eating.

ONLY people who spend most of their time in the countryside could have hit on the idea of staging an pro-hunt protest by bringing the traffic around Birmingham to a standstill during morning rush-hour.

Anyone familiar with the motoring hell that is the M6, M42 and M5 between 7am and 9am could have told the Countryside Action Network (CAN) that it was wasting its time. The plan was to drive a few Land Rovers along the motorways at 10mph, causing tailbacks and drawing attention to the pro-hunting lobby's campaign to save their sport. Those drivers resigned to taking up to two hours to crawl five miles into Britain's second city could only dream of such speeds.

The protesters abandoned the demonstration, admitting that the roads were already congested enough.

According to police, attempts to cause chaos in Cambridge, south Wales and Manchester also had little effect. Only in South Yorkshire did a protest on the A1(M) motorway near Doncaster succeed in causing "considerable" tailbacks on both that road and the M18 during rush-hour, although congestion later cleared.

Even the Countryside Alliance, the largest pro-hunting group, was unimpressed. A spokeswoman said the group did not endorse the CAN's action: "We don't agree with disrupting the public," she said.

A CAN spokeswoman said: "We are all Countryside Alliance members, but we do feel that the alliance is just a little bit too polite, and politeness does not work with New Labour."

However, the League Against Cruel Sports said the motorway protest showed a "contempt for ordinary people and for the democratic process".

The league's chief executive, Douglas Batchelor, said: "The hunters are again showing a complete lack of respect for the public who are trying to get about their daily lives."

AS PRESIDENT, George Bush picks up a healthy 259,740 pounds a year, a not inconsiderable sum for a draft dodger who spent his youth in an alcoholic haze.

But in a country which reveres the stars of Hollywood and the small screen above all others, it should come as no surprise to learn that the man who inhabits the White House in the hit television drama The West Wing should be earning more than 16 times as much.

Yesterday, it emerged that Martin Sheen, 61, had agreed a new deal to play the role of the US president in one of the most successful shows in years, tripling his salary in the process.

The star, who made his name in Apocalypse Now, will earn GBP 194,805 an episode for playing the character of Josiah Bartlet. With a minimum of 22 episodes to be filmed for the new season, the deal will take his annual salary to somewhere in the region of GBP 6.6 million. Sheen still lags behind the biggest earners in the US, dominated by the sitcom stars signed up to the NBC network. Kelsey Grammer, the star of Frasier, makes more than GBP 1 million per episode, with sidekick David Hyde Pierce on about GBP 650,000 for each show. Between them, they are paid as much as the six stars of Friends will earn for their upcoming final season.

But Sheen is by no means the first performer to earn more than the person he has been asked to play on screen.

Britain's Rory Bremner, who has appeared on screen as John Major and Tony Blair, easily out-earns the politicians he lampoons, while Albert Finney, who received critical acclaim for his performance as Winston Churchill in BBC2's The Gathering Storm last night, can command up to GBP 500,000 a time for his appearances, far outstripping Churchill's GBP 10,600 salary as Prime Minister.

But the biggest contrast again features a US actor. John Travolta was paid a reported GBP 13 million to play the part of governor Jack Stanton in the 1998 movie Primary Colors. The film was widely regarded a satirical take on Bill Clinton's 1990 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and, even with the former president now commanding six figure sums for speaking engagements, Travolta's fee for one film was six times more than Clinton earned in his entire time in the White House.

And while Clinton had the perk of ready access to interns, Sheen's new deal reportedly includes an office suite on the Warner Bros complex, a production deal with the studio, guaranteed days off each week and a role in the programme for Renee Estevez, his daughter.

Estevez has previously appeared on the show as Nancy, a staffer who served as an assistant to presidential secretary Mrs Landingham, who was killed off in a car crash during May sweeps, apparently jeopardising Estevez's part.

A spokesman for Warner Bros Television, the show's production company, confirmed that Sheen had negotiated a new deal, but would not discuss any details.

The West Wing has proved to be a television success both in the US and in Britain. The show's sharp scripts and clever satire have gathered a growing number of fans, said to include Bill Clinton.

Whether George Bush is as big a fan is not known, but what is certain is that despite profiting from playing the role of president, Sheen is not a fan of Bush.

"George W Bush is like a bad comic working the crowd; a moron, if you'll pardon the expression," he said recently.

He also revealed that he could not understand why anyone would want to become president and admitted that he was bewildered by the campaign which propelled Bush into the White House.

Sheen's supporting players, Allison Janney, John Spencer, Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff, staged a walk-out last year over what they viewed as unfair treatment.

The four, who had all been nominated for Emmy awards, succeeded in getting substantial salary increases, each making about GBP 48,700 per episode last season as compared to the approximately GBP 64,935 per season pulled in by Sheen and Rob Lowe.

Albert Finney and Winston Churchill. Finney, who plays Winston Churchill in BBC2's dramatisation of the war leader's wilderness years, The Gathering Storm, was paid GBP 500,000 to appear in Karaoke, Dennis Potter's last major television work. Winston Churchill earned just GBP 10,600 a year as Prime Minister.

Rory Bremner and Tony Blair. According to accounts at Companies House for the television company Vera Productions, Bremner last year earned GBP 276,562 in annual pay for his "services as writer and performer." Blair, as Prime Minister, earns a total of GBP 165,418, including his prime ministerial salary of GBP 113,596 and parliamentary salary of GBP 51,822.

Mike Yarwood and Harold Wilson. Yarwood complained that money was so tight at the BBC that he often had to do as many as ten characters a day in full make -up, but he cleaned up when he moved to ITV in 1981 for a reported GBP 500,000. Harold Wilson, whose character he had perfected, was paid GBP 17,250 as Prime Minister.

John Travolta and Bill Clinton. Travolta was paid GBP 13million to appear in Primary Colors, a film based on Clinton's 1990 Democratic presidential campaign. Clinton was paid GBP 259,740 a year plus GBP 32,500 expenses.

Anthony Hopkins and Richard Nixon. Hopkins, who played Nixon in the film of the same name, earns about GBP 2million per movie. Nixon, during his time in the White House, was paid GBP 129,870 a year plus GBP 32,500 expenses.

ORGANISERS of the Open Championship have launched an investigation after 47 out of 48 Nigerians granted visas to enter Britain to take part in the competition failed to turn up for their matches.

There are suspicions that some of the would-be golfers had no intention of taking part in the tournament, but used the event as an excuse to get past immigration controls.

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club, which organises the tournament, has expressed surprise at the size of the entry from a country not normally associated with top-class golf, and concern about the failure of the golfers to show up. The mystery deepened yesterday when both the Nigerian Golf Union and the Nigerian High Commission denied any knowledge of such a large entry.

Top-class golf courses are few and far between in the West African country, and the annals of golfing history are not overburdened with the names of Nigerian greats.

Suspicions began to surface when officials at the Open qualifying tournaments reported that their Nigerian contingent had failed to turn up to play.

None of the 11 Nigerians expected at the Hadley Wood course in north London turned up, while Orsett in Essex found itself missing all 13 of its anticipated contestants. Only Trentham in Staffordshire reported a Nigerian golfer arriving to play out of ten who had been expected. Ifeanyi Chukwu went round in 76 but failed to make it through the qualifying round.

Yesterday, Peter Dawson, the secretary of the Royal and Ancient, said: "We did have a large entry from Nigeria in particular and a good number didn't turn up.

"We are running a championship and we checked as many of them as we could, but with the benefit of hindsight, something strange does appear to have gone on."

The Nigerian Golf Union conceded that the entry did appear to be considerably higher than they were aware of. A spokesman said they knew of only two golfers who had been recommended to take part in the championship.

IT WAS just before 11: 30am when Hesham Mohamed Hadayet walked through the doors of the Tom Bradley International Departures terminal at Los Angeles International Airport. It was Thursday morning, and it was his 41st birthday.

Earlier, he had called his father in Egypt from his flat in the Woodbridge Pines development, a middle-class area sandwiched between restaurants and shops in suburban Orange County.

As a dutiful son, he knew his father would want to wish him happy birthday. Perhaps he also wanted to receive the best wishes of his wife and two sons, aged eight and 11, who were staying with his mother and father in their flat in a six-storey building in one of the better parts of Cairo. If Hadayet gave any intimation of his plans for the day, the family are not saying. All that is known is that sometime later the limousine driver left the apartment and set off in the direction of the airport 35 miles to the north -west .

Entering the departure building, Hadayet was hardly inconspicuous. Powerfully built, with greying hair, he weighed a little over 16 stone. He had concealed a .45-calibre Glock handgun and a 9mm handgun along with a 6in knife and extra ammunition and magazines for the guns.

Accounts of what happened next differ wildly. According to some witnesses, he joined the queue for the crowded El Al ticket desk and slowly shuffled forwards until he reached the counter, where he appeared to become increasingly agitated as he talked to the ticket agent, before reaching into his pocket and producing a gun. Others said he simply walked up to the counter and opened fire from as far as 15ft away.

Guillermo Fergoza was standing with his wife about 25ft from the counter when the shooting started. "They started arguing at the counter," said Fergoza. "He stepped back and pulled the gun out of his waistband. A lot of people started falling to the floor."

Arie Golan, a 54-year-old Israeli army veteran on his way to visit his grandchildren in Israel, gave this account: "There were people laying all over the floor. There was blood.

"I heard a lot of shots, maybe 15 or 20. It was very quick. I heard the shots, turned, and I saw the security guard jump over the rope."

Mr Golan said he decided he had to try to help: "I just wanted to stop him. I jumped on him. He still had the gun in his hand. It was a small gun, maybe a .22. We wrestled him to the ground."

It was over in seconds. As the two men wrestled with Hadayet, his gun slipped out of his hands and slithered across the floor. The guard, Haim Sapir, the chief of El Al security, had already been stabbed and shot by Hadayet and he was taking no chances. He shot the gunman dead on the spot.

Two others also lay dead or dying on the ground nearby - Jacob Aminov, 46, an Israeli migre and diamond importer who lived in North Hollywood, and Victoria Hen, a 20-year-old Israeli working as a ticket agent for El Al. Mr Aminov's pregnant wife fainted when she was told he had died.

Mr Aminov, the father of eight children, had not been catching a flight, but had offered to drive a long-time friend to the airport despite his family's entreaties to stay at home on such a sensitive day.

As the bodies were taken away and the injured were treated, investigators started to piece together Hadayet's life.

An Egyptian by birth, Hadayet - who also used the last name Ali - had studied commerce at university and worked as an accountant before arriving in the US in 1992. Although he was not a US citizen, he had a green card enabling him to work and he ran his limousine service, Five Star Limo, from the apartment where he lived with his wife and children.

Neighbours said the rest of the family had gone away on holiday for the summer, leaving Hadayet alone.

He lived quietly, they said, and caused no trouble. But there was one incident which stuck in their minds, shortly after 11 September, when Hadayet lost his cool.

An upstairs neighbour had hung large US and marine flags from the balcony above his front door: "He complained about it to the apartment manager. He thought it was being thrown in his face," said a neighbour, Steve Thompson.

There was also a car bumper sticker on Hadayet's front door. "Read the Koran," it said. It was later removed.

In Cairo, his wife and sister were taken away for questioning by Egyptian intelligence officers. Hassan Mostafa Mahfouz, a retired general and Hadayet's uncle, said the family could not understand why he had carried out the shooting: "I was surprised and upset by this news. I felt that he could not do that. He is a very, very tender person and close to his family," Mr Mahfouz said.

He said Hadayet had been happy in the US: "He wanted to get US citizenship. He had only this year remaining before he qualified for it."

With Hadayet dead, the problem now facing US investigators is establishing why he carried out the act. Israel is adamant that it was terrorism, but the FBI has all but ruled that out.

"We're not looking for any other suspects," said Richard Garcia, the FBI official in charge of the investigation.

His car, found outside the airport, was removed for further examination. Agents took away boxes of items from his apartment. Reports began to emerge yesterday suggesting that Hadayet could have been a disgruntled former employee of the airline or the airport, or had a dispute over identification in the ticket line, making the terrorism theory even less likely.

THEY flew out to Afghanistan expecting to fight a war against al-Qaeda and the Taleban. They were told that many of their number might die.

Last night, the Royal Marines of 45 Commando landed at Prestwick Airport without having set eyes on their enemy.

Operation Jacana cost an estimated GBP 65 million - GBP 47,101 for each of the 1,380 combat troops deployed, GBP 1,444 for every one of the 45,000 rounds of ammunition captured and GBP 2,321,428 per cave and bunker blown up. Yet the Royal Marines who spent their time chasing shadows were greeted like conquering heroes last night when they stepped off a white Boeing 747 and into the drizzle at Prestwick Airport.

A piper played them down the steps, then inside the arrivals hall, they embraced the loved ones they had not seen for six months.

Leanne Shanks, 24, held on to the hand of husband Simon and admitted it felt strange to see him again.

"I just feel shaky," she said, unable to stop smiling. "I am just glad to see him back."

The couple, from Largs, were only married in October and for 26-year-old Simon, a Lance Corporal, it was enough just to be back.

"Out there it is hot with dust and flies and you are living in tents. I've been counting down the days for so long," he said.

Fiona McIlvenna, waiting for husband Eddie was a bundle of nerves. Jumping up and down and cheering as each of the men stepped out from the plane, she could only clutch her head in her hands and scream as he appeared from the plane.

Waiting to welcome the men off the plane was Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces minister.

He dismissed suggestions that the mission had been a waste of time, although the only real threat they faced in three months of frustration and inaction came from boredom and the winter vomiting bug.

Three months ago, Mr Ingram had predicted casualties: "It's going to be a bloody campaign, longer than three months, possibly six to nine months. We do have to expect that there will be casualties."

Last night, he insisted the Arbroath-based Marines had made a difference for the people of Afghanistan.

"Realistically when they went out there we had to say we were expecting casualties because they were going into a difficult environment. But we are so relieved that there were no injuries and we are pleased by what they achieved."

Yet the absence of Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters, who vanished over the border into Pakistan, meant there was precious little to be achieved.

All that was left were a few weapons caches. Even the destruction of 28 bunkers lost some of its sheen when local mujahideen commanders pointed out that many had been left over from the war with the Soviet Union.

A surge of interest at a report that the marines had finally been involved in a gun battle was quickly deflated when it became clear that the British had played no part at all in the engagement. The Australian SAS had succeeded in killing a few unidentified gunmen, but by the time the British arrived to launch Operation Condor in Paktia province, whoever they had been fighting had long since departed.

Adam Ingram had been right about one thing though - the marines were to suffer casualties, but it was ill health, rather than bullets and bombs, which laid them low. They may be some of the world's most respected mountain warfare specialists, but operating at up to 12,000ft even the Royal Marines were not immune to altitude sickness, appendicitis and scorpion bites.

Nor were they prepared for the outbreak of the winter vomiting bug which necessitated the quarantining of 300 solders at Bagram airbase in May. During Operation Ptarmigan, the first foray outside the confines of the airbase, 400 marines from 45 Commando had headed into the mountains looking for al-Qaeda or Taleban troops. They thought they had found them when explosions, initially assumed to be incoming mortar rounds, were heard nearby. The explosions turned out to be the sound of sheep stepping on mines.

For Operation Snipe, 1,000 men were sent into the mountains to take on a force which they were told was made up of 1,000 enemy fighters. Although they failed to find a single gunman, they did blow up nine caves, only for a local warlord to claim they belonged to him.

By the time of Operation Condor, the failure to engage the enemy was becoming embarrassing. The American news network CNN was prompted to headline its report on the mission: "Condor Swoop: No Enemy Found Yet."

It appeared that many of the Taleban had simply laid down their arms and gone back to their villages and as the weeks passed, the frustration began to surface among the men and their commanders.

Brigadier Roger Lane, the man in charge of the expedition, found himself in the firing line from unnamed Ministry of Defence sources who described the operation as a farce and suggested that he was out of his depth. After the brigadier told journalists on 8 May that the time for large-scale engagements was coming to an end, it was announced that he was being replaced, despite previous assertions from Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, that he had his full confidence.

With no-one to fight and little to show for their efforts, the decision was taken to bring the troops home.

As they prepared to come home, Major Richard Stephens, of Zulu Company, confessed: "Not getting to grips with the enemy was a massive frustration." Lt Col Tim Chicken, commanding officer of 45 Commando, said: "It's understandable that there's a sense of disappointment at the outcome from certain quarters. It was a difficult job and fighting would have been easier in a lot of respects."

Last night at Prestwick, Quartermaster Major Phil Beasley agreed. "It was frustrating not to do what we went out to do," he said, although he felt they had achieved something worthwhile.

"It's been challenging, frustrating at times but there is a sense of achievement. I think we've done more than we could have hoped for."

For Lance Corporal Shanks, the mission had not been a waste of time, but he confessed to disappointment that they had failed to engage the enemy. "It was frustrating because, when we went out, we believed the hype. They were telling us to expect casualties and we were expecting the worst, but the operation changed and that's the way our job is.

"It's disappointing because you want to test your skills. It's like being an athlete and not getting to go to the Olympic Games."

AS an act of hypocrisy, it takes some beating. When the rock band Oasis wanted to feature a couple of military helicopters in one of their music videos, they turned to the British Army for help.

The top brass were only too happy to oblige, supplying men and machines to enliven the opening sequences of the band's 1997 release, D'You Know What I Mean.

But when the Edinburgh-based Highlanders regiment decided to use a couple of old Oasis songs in its latest promotional video, it was quite another story. Lawyers acting for the band waded into action, firing off a letter to the regiment warning that it must remove the songs - Wonderwall and Hello - from the soundtrack or face legal action.

The band also made it clear that they would not have granted permission for the songs to be used even if the army had remembered to ask for permission.

But the band's antipathy towards the military was not in evidence in 1997 when they paid the Ministry of Defence GBP 3,000 an hour to hire two Gazelle helicopters belonging to the Army Air Corps.

The helicopters were featured in the video for the first track from the band's third album, Be Here Now. They were seen swooping overhead before disgorging a number of people in combat clothing.

But the band are believed to have objected to their songs being associated with the Highlanders' video, which featured footage of the regiment on manoeuvres in Kenya, dressed in desert fatigues and carrying rifles. The promotional footage was intended for use in schools and shopping centres.

Andy Damond, of Big Brother Recordings, the band's record company, said: "I have spoken to the adjutant at the Highlanders and have told them there is no way they would get copyright clearance on the tracks - even if they had asked."

He said anyone wishing to use Oasis songs on any soundtrack needed to ask permission in advance.

The band's refusal to allow its songs to be used to help recruit would-be soldiers to the Edinburgh-based regiment has surprised and annoyed many in military circles, including members of the Royal British Legion Scotland.

Spokesman Neil Griffiths, himself a former soldier, said: "I find it rather peculiar because they had a single out featuring Army Air Corps helicopters, so obviously money or goodwill was exchanged then. It is a surprise that a group like Oasis, who have used the military in the past, have now said no to letting the army use their songs. It is unquestionably a slap in the face."

The army in Scotland was quick to admit that the regiment had made a mistake by failing to ask for permission to use the songs.

A spokeswoman explained that the video had been shot on exercises in Kenya for the regiment's own use and no-one had thought to seek permission for the soundtrack.

"It was done in ignorance, but they know now and will not do it again," she said.

The army has recalled all 300 copies of the video and the songs have now been removed from the soundtrack.

Yesterday, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said the Highlanders were unaware they needed the band's permission to use the music until it was "brought to their attention".

Oasis, led by combative brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, dominated the British charts in the mid-1990s.

But in recent years their star has faded and until the release of Hindu Times, their first single for two years, in April, they had become better known for their rock-star lifestyles and Liam's arguments with former Take That celebrity Robbie Williams.

It is not the first time the band have gone into battle to protect their artistic integrity. They have previously refused permission for the Smurfs to produce a cover version of Wonderwall.

The Highlanders	Oasis
Famous foes: Indian Mutineers, Dervishes.	Famous foes: Blur, Robbie Williams.
Famous battles: The Battle of Assaye (1803). Seaforths defeated the much larger French-trained Maharrata force. The Battle of Waterloo (1815). The 79th (Cameron) and 92nd (Gordon) battalions played a central part. Boer War (1899-1902), won eight VCs. First World War (1914-1918), won 14 VCs, lost 50,000 men.	Famous battles: The Battle with Blur (1995). Ended in defeat when Blur's Country House pipped Roll With It to the No 1 spot. The battle with Robbie Williams (2000). Ended inconclusively after a series of skirmishes provoked by Liam's description of Robbie as "a fat dancer". The battle with photographers and bouncers. Assorted and ongoing engagements, including Liam's arrest for assaulting a photographer in 1998.
Notable acts of bravery: Lucknow (1857). Six VCs awarded to Seaforth Highlanders in battle against Indian Mutineers. North West Frontier of India (1897). Two VCs won seizing Heights of Dargai from Pathan tribesman, including Piper Findlater, who played on after being shot in both ankles.	Notable acts of bravery: Releasing the album Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, marrying Meg Mathews and Patsy Kensit.
Uniform: Kilt in Gordon tartan, trousers in Seaforth Mackenzie. Pipers and drummers wear Cameron of Erracht tartan.	Uniform: Parkas, Stone Island jackets, denim (informal), retro trainers, sunglasses.
Original line-up: 72nd Highlanders (formed 1778), 78th Highlanders (1793), 79th Cameron Highlanders (1793), 75th Stirlingshire (1787), 92nd Gordon Highlanders (1794).	Original line up: Liam and Noel Gallagher, Paul Arthurs, Paul McGuigan and Tony McCarroll. McGuigan - known as Guigsy - and Arthurs - known as Bonehead - quit in 2000.
Previous name: Queen's Own Highlanders.	Previous name: Rain. Liam changed the name, inspired by a leisure centre.
Famous marriages: The five original regiments became the Gordon Highlanders, Seaforth Highlanders and Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, before merging.	Famous marriages: Noel and Meg Mathews, Liam and Patsy Kensit. Both ended in divorce.
Favourite instruments: Pipes and drums.	Favourite instruments: Guitars and drums.
Musical influences: Traditional Scottish.	Musical influences: The Beatles.
Financial status: Starting pay GBP 10,720 a year.	Financial status: Liam is estimated to have a GBP 15 million fortune.
Motto: Caidich'n Righ (Help to the king).	Motto: Mad for it.

THE skiing sensation Alain Baxter was in hiding last night, desperately formulating his defence in the hope of clinging on to his Winter Olympic bronze medal after failing a drugs test in the biggest shock to hit Scottish sport in years.

The Highlands hero of the Salt Lake City games will be stripped of his medal and could be banned from the sport for up to two years if a second test confirms that he took the stimulant methamphetamine - also known as speed - before the final of the slalom event.

Baxter, whose GBP 70,000 of National Lottery funding will now be suspended, is pinning his hopes on convincing the International Olympic Committee that the positive results were wrongly caused by his use of a decongestant medicine, a nasal spray made by Vicks and available in the United States, rather than by an illegal recreational drug.

The 28-year-old, who astonished observers when he came from eighth position to snatch the bronze medal after several bigger names fell, may also point to the results of a random drugs test carried out at the beginning of last month, which proved negative. A blood test at the start of the games also proved negative.

Those involved in the sport, however, say that even if he did not take the drug intentionally, Baxter is guilty of gross stupidity for failing to check on the medicines he was using.

Unless he can clear his name, Baxter, whose bronze was Britain's first-ever Winter Olympic medal on snow, will join a rogues gallery of shamed Scottish stars, including the sprinter Dougie Walker, banned for two years after testing positive for nandrolone in December 1998, and the footballer Willie Johnston, sent home from the 1978 World Cup in Argentina after testing positive for an anti-histamine treatment called Reactivan, a stimulant.

Baxter was informed last Friday afternoon that the sample he had supplied immediately after the slalom final on 23 February had tested positive for methamphetamine. A second test will be carried out on 11 March. The skier and his lawyer are entitled to attend. In a statement yesterday, Baxter said: "Naturally, I am devastated by this news.

"I have therefore decided to make public that I am the athlete in question because I have never knowingly taken any medicine or substance to improve my performance and as such believe that I am entirely innocent."

The carefully worded release contained no explicit denial that he had ingested a banned substance. It refers specifically to performance-enhancing material, and methamphetamine, a recreational drug, is not viewed as such.

The Aviemore skier's case could be crippled by the IOC's strict liability rule towards drugs, preventing him from arguing that he took the substance inadvertently or unknowingly, and Olympic anti-doping officials were unimpressed by his denials.

"It's the usual refrain," said Dick Pound, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency. "Have you ever heard of anyone responding to a positive case differently? I can think of no therapeutic application for (methamphetamine) at all."

Arne Ljungqvist, the acting chairman of the IOC medical commission, said: "It's the excuse one often hears. Amphetamines are not normally taken by accident."

British officials were also distancing themselves from the skier, pointing out that it was up to him to check with medical staff if he planned to use any medication.

Michele Verroken, UK Sport's director of anti-doping, said: "It is not so much a surprise as a disappointment.

"It is devastating for the individual concerned, but it is evidence that the testing process is there to find such cases at major games."

With positive drugs tests almost unheard of in Alpine skiing, Baxter will be hoping he can repeat the success of Ross Rebagliati, the Canadian snowboarder who had his gold medal stripped and then returned after testing positive for tiny quantities of cannabis in 1998.

He persuaded officials to overturn the decision after arguing he had been exposed to the drug accidentally because he spent time with others who had smoked the drug recreationally.

Methamphetamine abuse is a growing problem in the United States and it is available legally only through a prescription.

There are a few accepted medical reasons for its use, such as the treatment of narcolepsy, attention deficit disorder and obesity.

Although it causes increased activity, decreased appetite and a general sense of well-being, it is not generally considered to be performance-enhancing.

Baxter's best hope is that he can convince Olympic officials the drug test was caused by the use of a decongestant.

Medical experts say the nasal spray, not available in the UK, can lead to the formation of the drug in the body, creating a positive test result.

One senior figure in the British Olympic movement suggested Baxter may be able to mount a successful defence. "There's more to this than meets the eye," he said.

But the positive test must throw doubt over Baxter's decision to pull out of the giant slalom two days before he won his bronze, citing an injured right knee. Had he already taken the drug, his withdrawal would have given more time for the substance to leave his system. Methamphetamine can stay in the body for four days.

Mr Baxter, 56, a ski instructor, said: "I just don't see it. Honestly, I don't know what has happened. I've been shaking since I heard the news and I cannot get hold of Alain to find out what is going on. I don't even know where he is just now.

"There is something crazy going on. Taking a drug like that would just make him worse."

He added: "What worries me now is that even if this is proven to be a lot of nonsense, there will still be a stigma attached which takes the shine off what he has achieved."

Baxter, nicknamed "the Highlander", had already caused a stir at the games after dying his hair blue and white to resemble the Saltire.

However, he was persuaded to change the design as it could constitute a prohibited political statement, and he competed with a head of blue hair.

OLYMPIC skiing hero Alain Baxter's hopes of holding on to his bronze medal were fading last night after it emerged the cold cure he plans to blame for his positive drugs test is on the list of banned substances for athletes.