Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher deployed army of spies in Gibraltar after Falklands

Margaret Thatcher ordered that an army of spies be deployed across southern Spain to safeguard Gibraltar against a Falklands-style surprise attack.

The Prime Minister was obsessed with the possibility that the Spanish might attempt to retake the Rock, captured by Britain in 1704, while the Armed Forces were distracted by war in the South Atlantic.

The seizure by Argentina of the Falklands in April 1982 coincided with a thaw in Anglo-Spanish relations. Talks on the future of Gibraltar were to coincide with the opening of the border, closed by General Franco in 1969.

Presented with a Ministry of Defence assessment on the threat to Gibraltar three days after the fall of Port Stanley, Thatcher scribbled in the margin: “This is suspiciously like the Falkland Islands assessments before invasion.”

The MoD tried to calm the Prime Minister’s fears, explaining that post-fascist Spain was anxious to join both Nato and the EEC and would want to wreck these ambitions by emarking on a wild military adventure.

In any event, the isthmus joining Gibraltar to the mainland was easy to defend and reinforcements could be sent in a week, should a Spanish build-up be detected. But a caveat was inserted: “The territory could no doubt eventually be overwhelmed by vastly superior forces,” warned the planners.

Unconvinced, Thatcher ordered another assessment by the Joint Intelligence Committee, the coordinating body for Britain’s intelligence agencies. It was similarly comforting, suggesting that the only risk to the colony came from rogue elements in the Spanish armed forces staging a small-scale unauthorized assault as an “act of bravado”.

Quietly, measures were taken to beef up defences. An infantry company was sent to join the garrison battalion, together with Blowpipe anti-aircraft missiles. General Sir William Jackson, Gibraltar’s governor, wanted six Buccaneer bombers flown in to provide insurance against a Spanish amphibious exercise due to start on April 26.

But just two Jaguars were sent instead so as not to arouse suspicion. Thatcher’s worries continued after the war. In September 1982 the JIC admitted that there might be no warning at all of an attack by rogue units, prompting her to demand the deployment of a “large number of agents” to cover a “wide belt of territory” on the Spanish side of the border.

On October 28 her private secretary observed: “The Prime Minister has noted the precautions which we are taking to obtain early intelligence of possible Spanish action against Gibraltar but does not find the picture very reassuring. She would therefore welcome a further word with FCO (Foreign Office) and ‘C’ (The chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6).”

Motorway screens to be introduced to stop rubbernecking and clear accidents faster

More than 3,000 screens have been bought by the Highways Agency to stop drivers in England rubbernecking when passing motorway accidents.

The partitions will be put up to deter drivers who slow down to look at crashes on the opposite carriageway and therefore slow down the traffic behind.

They form part of a Department for Transport initiative to improve accident clear-up times.

The government said the screens would "keep the motorways flowing".

The DfT's CLEAR - collision, lead, evaluate, act and reopen - initiative was launched last year to help ensure motorways and roads reopen quickly following major accidents.

As part of this scheme, 105 sets of incident screens will be made available for use by the Highways Agency next year.

'Great advantage'

Each set has 30 screens which are loaded onto purpose-built trailers and can screen up to 75m if used end-to-end. The individual screens are approximately 2.1m by 2m high.

The total cost of the purchase was £2.3m, with each set costing £22,000.

Roads minister Stephen Hammond said: "This will be another great advantage to hopefully clearing up collisions but also getting the roads moving rather more quickly afterwards.

"People will recognise these screens, recognise that something's happening behind it, but actually realise it won't impact on their motorway - there's nothing to see, and we want to keep the motorways flowing."

RAC Foundation director, Stephen Glaister, said the use of the screens should be welcomed.

"Incident screens reduce disruption to traffic following an incident [and] assist the emergency services," he said.

"Ensuring that motorists not involved in an incident complete their journeys safely and on time is important.

"The economy relies on an efficient road network. Traffic jams following incidents increase frustration and the risk of low speed collisions."

#VisitEastbourne - take in the fresh sea air & enjoy stunning coastal views

One of the things I've thoroughly enjoyed this Christmas apart from the usual family festivities is the time to get out and about with the dog and appreciate our stunning surroundings in daylight.

There are few places I know that can offer the combination of rolling green and pleasant downland with coastal sea views in the way Eastbourne does.

Whilst I've worked around Kent and Sussex in a variety of places, I've lived in Eastbourne all my life and I never tire of our picturesque landscape so I thought that it would be a good thing to share some of the views I've enjoyed this week with my Twitter followers and Facebook friends.

So whether you live local or have never been to Eastbourne, I urge you to dust off the cobwebs, take a lungful of fresh sea air and enjoy a visit to Eastbourne.

Looking towards Belle Tout Lighthouse from Birling Gap

Beachy Head Lighthouse

Eastbourne Downland (from Beachy Head to Birling Gap & the Sevensisters)
The Gateway to the South Downs National Park

Martello Tower at Sovereign Harbour North

Sovereign Harbour Mouth

North Harbour Beaches with views to Pevensey Bay and Bexhill-on-Sea

Wild Ponies grazing up at Birling Gap until February 2013

Looking down on Birling Gap and on towards the Sevensisters

Belle Tout Lighthouse

Graphene research gets £21.5m investment fund

The Chancellor, George Osborne, has announced extra funding to boost the UK's development of the so-called "super-material" graphene.

It is one of the lightest yet strongest and most conductive materials known to man - and was originally discovered by scientists at Manchester University.

Now other universities will be asked to research potential commercial uses.

Mr Osborne said the £21.5m investment fund would aim to take the technology from the lab to the factory floor.

He has previously pledged money for such research, including £50m in 2011.

Graphene is made of sheets of carbon just one atom thick, and has outstanding mechanical strength and electronic properties.

Manchester University academics Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for demonstrating its properties.

It is hoped that the material will be used in a wide array of industrial and everyday applications.

Government funding

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has identified the most promising graphene-related research projects in British universities to benefit from state funding.

The University of Cambridge has been awarded more than £12m for research into graphene flexible electronics and opto-electronics, which could include things like touch-screens and other display devices.

London's Imperial College will receive over £4.5m to investigate aerospace applications of graphene.

The other successful projects are based at Durham University, the University of Manchester, the University of Exeter and Royal Holloway.

The universities will work with industrial partners including Nokia, BAE Systems, Procter & Gamble, Qinetiq, Rolls-Royce, Dyson, Sharp and Philips Research, which will together bring in a further £12m in investment.

Mr Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there had been "enormous competition" for the graphene research to be done elsewhere in the world, rather than the UK.

He said: "We had to act very quickly... to step in and say we're going to provide funding here in Britain for that activity. That's an example of actually actively backing a winner to keep it in the UK."

Mr Osborne said there were several ways in which the UK could become an attractive location for scientific research, including more financial backing from the government, protecting spending on science, and more investment in big capital science projects.

He added that Britain's universities - the "jewels in the crown" of the UK economy - needed to be protected.

Tower's Jubilee raven released

A raven given to the Queen to mark the Diamond Jubilee has been released at the Tower of London.

The new recruit, named Jubilee, was a gift from Martin Harris, a Somerset breeder who has been supplying ravens to the tower for 12 years.

Seven of the eight resident birds have been bred by Mr Harris to fulfil King Charles II's decree that at least six ravens should be kept at the tower at all times.

Now, after more than six months of settling into "tower life", Jubilee has been released from his cage to enjoy "the freedom of the tower".

'Most pampered birds'

"Raven Jubilee is doing very well and has now been trained to come out of his cage and meet all the visitors," Chris Skaife, the tower's raven master, said.

"But it takes years for the birds to really get to know members of the raven team and for us to get to know them and their idiosyncratic ways."

He added: "They are the most pampered birds in the country - and one of the most intelligent.

"They gang up on small children with crisps at the tower - but they don't like cheese and onion - so they'll open the packet and dip the crisps in water to get rid of the taste."

Jubilee joined the tower's "privileged" resident birds in May and has just recently been released
Looked after by a team of four, night and day, the birds are fed a diet of 6oz (170g) of raw meat and bird formula biscuits soaked in animal blood each day.

And once a week they enjoy an egg, plus the occasional rabbit.

It was more than a decade ago that Mr Harris was contacted by the Tower of London's raven master to provide birds for the historic visitor attraction. He thought it was a "hoax call" and hung up on him.

'Really smart'

He said supplying the tower's birds was as "good as it gets for a raven breeder".

"They are really smart creatures. They can mimic police sirens and take a mobile phone apart in 30 seconds and they're so inquisitive and so nosy," he said.

"But if they got too friendly with humans, they could end up assuming everything was theirs and be sitting on people's shoulders and terrorising visitors.

"So we leave them with their parents to rear them, so they are not imprinted and it gives them a bit of wildness and makes them a bit aloof."

Legend has it that should the ravens ever leave the tower it would crumble, and a great disaster befall the UK.

But occasionally an enlisted raven has to be dismissed.

Pearl, a female, was installed in the tower in June 2011 but had to be returned to Mr Harris for a course of "confidence building".

"Pearl didn't cope well - she was getting bullied by the other ravens so I've got her back here and she's in with my own pet raven and holding her own," said Mr Harris.

"I've been leaving food out for her to come and 'steal' - that's point scoring for ravens and that's building her confidence as well.

"We had another one, he was really smart, he came back to us too but he was an out-and-out thief and didn't do well in the tower either."

A second male bird, bred by Mr Harris and named Gripp after Charles Dickens' pet raven, has also been enlisted by the tower and has been released along with Jubilee.

Prince Charles pays tribute to our armed forces

The Prince of Wales has told British forces fighting in Afghanistan that the nation owes them "an everlasting debt of gratitude".

He thanked them for their "fortitude and relentless courage".

In a pre-recorded message broadcast on radio on 26 December, he said that all troops serving "in far off lands" were in his thoughts and prayers.

He joked that he had received a "very rare and precious letter" from Prince Harry, serving in Afghanistan.

His 28-year-old son is an Apache helicopter pilot, serving as part of the 100-strong 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment, Army Air Corps in Helmand province.

Charles's broadcast was aired on the British Forces Broadcasting Service radio on the Total Ops Connection programme, broadcast across the world from Camp Bastion.

He said: "I... wanted to pay tribute to the extraordinary contribution made by those of you who belong to our Armed Forces, in all sorts of different parts of the world.

"Nowhere is your fortitude and relentless courage more clearly on display than in Afghanistan, where your resilience, patience and determination to see the job through - usually in impossibly difficult conditions and circumstances - is, quite simply, humbling."

The heir to the throne is colonel-in-chief of a number of regiments serving in Afghanistan and he said he knew about the hardships troops face because of the regular reports from his units - and the occasional contact with Harry.

He said: "I am well aware of the discomfort and privations you all endure with seemingly endless reserves of good humour.

"In addition to the intense heat and dust of the summer and the freezing winters, you face the constant, terrifying threat of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), attacks from rockets, grenades and small arms fire almost every day - and sometimes these attacks come from infiltrators hidden among those who are supposed to be working alongside you as allies.

"And yet you all seem to bounce back in an almost unbelievable way, despite the setbacks and vicious insurgent attacks."

Prince Charles' elder son, William, also serves with the armed forces - as a search and rescue pilot with the RAF.

He said: "With two sons currently serving in the Armed Forces, one of whom is with you all out there, I really do have at least some understanding of what your loved ones on the 'home front' are going through."

He said servicemen and women could keep in touch with relatives through phone calls and the internet "or, in the case of my younger son, to receive a very rare and precious letter in answer to mine".

Cameron's olive branch to the Church in Christian Christmas message

David Cameron adopted the most overtly Christian tone of any prime minister in recent memory with a Christmas address speaking of faith giving hope to “countless millions”.

Speaking at the end of a turbulent year for relations between church and state, he signalled a personal religious faith, referring to Jesus as “the light of all mankind”.

In language common in US public life but rare in British politics, he spoke of his own “hope and prayer” at Christmas while describing the Bible as “God’s word”.

He also hailed the euphoria of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics and the Diamond Jubilee as well as the dedication of the armed forces and emergency services as he emphasised that Christmas was an “opportunity to pause and reflect on the important things around us”.
Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said Mr Cameron should be applauded for having “nailed his colours to the mast”.

Meanwhile the Church of England welcomed his reminder of the “true meaning of Christmas”.

But it comes after an almost uniquely acrimonious year for relations between the Coalition and religious groups which were dominated by the issue of same-sex marriage, which pitted the Church of England and Roman Catholic Church directly against the Government.
The Government’s failure to support Christians seeking the right to wear cross in a case at European Court of Human Rights also led to accusations that the Government had turned its back on religion.

One leading Catholic bishop recently likened Mr Cameron to the Roman emperor Nero, who sanctioned the persecution of Christians, while evangelicals accused the Government of running its consultation on same-sex marriage “like an election in a tinpot state”.

Last week the former leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, said he wondered whether Mr Cameron’s “steadiness of purpose” could be trusted.

And at midnight mass tonight the Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury, Mark Davies, will draw direct comparisons between Government plans and the ideologies of Nazism and Communism, which he will say, threatened “Christian civilisation” in the name of “progress”.

Religion has long proved a thorny subject in British politics. Tony Blair, spoke little of his own faith while in office, while his communications director Alastair Campbell famously said that Downing Street did not “do God”.

Mr Cameron has previously described his faith as “a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns” meaning that “it sort of comes and goes”.

He said he was both “racked with doubts” but “sort of fundamentally” believes.

Mr Cameron attempted to build bridges with the churches earlier this year, including sending a high profile delegation to Rome to meet the Pope where Baroness Warsi spoke out against “militant secularism”.

In a personal message issued by Downing Street, Mr Cameron described 2012 as “an extraordinary year for our country” both cheering the Queen “to the rafters” and “showing the world what we’re made of” in the sporting arena.

"But Christmas also gives us the opportunity to remember the Christmas story – the story about the birth of Jesus Christ and the hope that he brings to the countless millions who follow him,” he said.

"The Gospel of John tells us that in this man was life, and that his life was the light of all mankind, and that he came with grace, truth and love. Indeed, God’s word reminds us that Jesus was the Prince of Peace.”

Singling out the dedication of servicemen and women on deployment in Afghanistan and elsewhere and the emergency services, he said: “When we are celebrating with family and friends, they and many others are all working on our behalf and deserve our thoughts and appreciation.

“So however you celebrate this time of year, it is my hope and prayer that you have a happy and peaceful Christmas.”

Lord Carey, who has been one of the most outspoken opponents of Mr Cameron’s plans to rewrite the marriage laws, said the Prime Minister should be applauded for the overtly Christian tone of his message.

He said that, despite their disagreements over marriage, he believed that the Prime Minister as a “good man” with a sincere faith.

“I’ve never doubted that,” he said.

“There are Christians who disagree with me on marriage and one has to respect people who come at it from a different point of view.

“My complaint is that politicians have been so reticent about their own faith so it is terrific when a prime minister nails his colours to the mast in that kind of way.

“It is a good reminder from a senior politician that there are values that transcend us all.
“I think he is a good man and he deserves our encouragement.

“Even if I think he is wrong on marriage this is a time to face up to the things that unite us.”