John Whitaker Straw is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001, and Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006 under Blair. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Blackburn from 1979 to 2015.
James Brian Edward Hutton, Baron Hutton, PC was a British Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.
James Martin Pacelli McGuinness was an Irish republican politician and statesman for Sinn Féin and a leader within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) during The Troubles. He was the deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from May 2007 to January 2017.
David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton, is a British politician who has served as Foreign Secretary since 2023. He previously served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016, as Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016, and as Leader of the Opposition from 2005 to 2010, while serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney from 2001 to 2016. He identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies.
Sir John McLeod Scarlett is a British senior intelligence officer. He was Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009. Prior to this appointment, he had chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC).
Sir Richard Billing Dearlove is a retired British intelligence officer who was head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), a role known informally as "C", from 1999 until 6 May 2004. He was head of MI6 during the invasion of Iraq. He was criticised by the Iraq Inquiry for providing unverified intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
The Bloody Sunday Inquiry, also known as the Saville Inquiry or the Saville Report after its chairman, Lord Saville of Newdigate, was established in 1998 by British Prime Minister Tony Blair after campaigns for a second inquiry by families of those killed and injured in Derry on Bloody Sunday during the peak of The Troubles. It was published on 15 June 2010. The inquiry was set up to establish a definitive version of the events of Sunday 30 January 1972, superseding the tribunal set up under Lord Widgery that had reported on 19 April 1972, 11 weeks after the events, and to resolve the accusations of a whitewash that had surrounded it.
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He served as Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997 and held various shadow cabinet posts from 1987 to 1994. Blair was Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007. He is the second-longest-serving prime minister in post-war British history and the longest-serving Labour politician to have held the office.
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who specialised in tackling organised crime. A prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he advised British intelligence and coined the term "mafia state".
This article concerns the policies, views and voting record of David Cameron, Foreign Secretary in the Sunak ministry and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Cameron describes himself as a "modern compassionate conservative" and has said that he is "fed up with the Punch and Judy politics of Westminster". He has stated that he is "certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite." Our Society, Your Life, a 2007 policy statement for the Conservative Party launched shortly after David Cameron became leader of the party, has been seen by some as a triangulation of Conservative ideology with that of Tony Blair's New Labour, linking into the idea of the Third Way and an attempted revival of one-nation conservatism. There have been claims that he described himself to journalists at a dinner during the leadership contest as the "Heir to Blair", and Cameron stated in 2005 that he did not intend to oppose the Labour government as a matter of course, and will offer his support in areas of agreement. He also wants to move the Conservatives focus away from purely fiscal matters, saying "It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB – general well-being". However, commentators have questioned the degree to which Cameron and his coalition have embodied this, instead locating them in the intellectual tradition of Thatcherism. However, Cameron has claimed to be a "liberal Conservative", and "not a deeply ideological person".
Brendan Duddy was a businessman from Derry, Northern Ireland, who played a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process. A notable Catholic republican, who was a pacifist and firm believer in dialogue, Duddy became known by MI6 as "The Contact". In his book, Great Hatred; Little Room – Making Peace in Northern Ireland, Tony Blair's political advisor Jonathan Powell described Duddy as the "key" which led to discussions between republicans and MI6, and ultimately the Northern Ireland peace process.
The Iraq Inquiry was a British public inquiry into the nation's role in the Iraq War. The inquiry was announced in 2009 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and published in 2016 with a public statement by Chilcot.
David Cameron's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 11 May 2010 when he accepted an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, and ended on 13 July 2016 upon his resignation following the 2016 referendum that favoured Brexit, which he had opposed. As prime minister, Cameron served simultaneously as First Lord of the Treasury and as Minister for the Civil Service.
Relations between Libya and the United Kingdom were initially close and positive after the British Armed Forces helped rebel forces to topple Muammar Gaddafi's regime in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. British officials have visited Libya several times since then, including two visits by Prime Minister David Cameron on which large crowds turned out to welcome him. The British Armed Forces are also helping to train Libya's National Army as part of wider cooperation on security matters. Security conditions have deteriorated since 2014, when the United Kingdom suspended operations from their embassy in Tripoli, into a second civil war. In June 2022, the United Kingdom re-opened its embassy in Tripoli.
Abdelhakim Belhaj is a Libyan politician and military leader. He is the leader of the Islamist al-Watan Party and former head of the Tripoli Military Council. He was the emir of the defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an anti-Gaddafi guerrilla group.
Robert Peter Hannigan CMG is a cybersecurity specialist who has been Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, since 2021. He was a senior British civil servant who previously served as the director of the signals intelligence and cryptography agency the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and established the UK's National Cyber Security Centre. His sudden resignation as director was announced on 23 January 2017, and he stepped down at the end of April 2017 to pursue a career in private sector cyber security, academia and as a security commentator. In 2021 he became Warden of Wadham College, Oxford.
Putin, Russia and the West is a four-part British documentary television series first shown in January and February 2012 on BBC Two about the relationship between Vladimir Putin's Russia and the West.
Michael Oatley is a former Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) officer, involved in the resolution of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. He directed MI6 operations in the Middle East, 1984–88, and in Europe, 1988–91. He was responsible for counter-terrorist operations from 1985–88.
The Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) is an organisation in Northern Ireland focusing on the Unionist or Loyalist side of society.
