Labour's diary, 1997-2002

Chancellor Gordon Brown "hits the ground running" and gives the Bank of England independent control of interest rates.

July IRA ceasefire renewed August Princess Diana killed in a car crash in Paris. On Trimdon village green, Tony Blair, pictured with Cherie at the funeral, refers to her as "the people's princess".

September Scotland and Wales embrace devolution. Scotland enthusiastically votes for a parliament with tax-raising powers, but Wales votes for an assembly with lesser powers by just 6,721 votes.

November The Ecclestone affair embroils Labour in its first major sleaze scandal. It is ordered to return £1m to Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One boss, after controversy over the Government's support for Formula One's call for an exemption from a Europe-wide ban on tobacco advertising.

December The sale of beef on the bone is banned in Britain.

1998

January Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam visits loyalist prisoners in the Maze prison to rescue the peace process.

Home Secretary Jack Straw's son sells cannabis to a tabloid newspaper reporter.

February Lord Irvine, Lord Chancellor, criticised over £650,000 cost of refurbishing his official residence. Wallpaper alone cost £59,000.

March About 250,000 people march through London in support of the Countryside Alliance.

April The Good Friday Agreement is reached in Northern Ireland, setting up a devolved assembly for the province.

August Real IRA's bomb attack in Omagh kills 28 people and is seen as an attempt to destabilise the peace process following the elections to the Northern Ireland assembly.

October Ron Davies, the Welsh Secretary, resigns after meeting a man on Clapham Common in a "moment of madness".

General Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator and bette noire of the left, is arrested in London. A long-running will he/won't he saga begins as a Spanish judge requests extradition so that Pinochet can face charges of murder and torture.

December Minister Without Portfolio Peter Mandelson admits borrowing £373,000 from Paymaster General Geoffrey Robinson for a home loan. Both resign.

America and Britain launch airstrikes against Iraq.

1999

January Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown's Press spokesman, resigns after being blamed for leaking Mandelson story.

February The Macpherson Report into the failings of the investigation into Stephen Lawrence's murder accuses the Metropolitan Police of being "institutionally racist".

March Gordon Brown cuts a penny off income tax and introduces the 10p starting rate.

Nato launches airstrikes against Yugoslavia as Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic is held responsible for ethnically cleansing 10,000 Albanians from their homes in Kosovo.

April The minimum wage is introduced at £3.60-an-hour.

May Devolution becomes a reality after Donald Dewar becomes Scottish first minister in a Lab-LibDem coalition and Alun Michael becomes Welsh first minister.

September Tony Blair attacks the "forces of conservatism" at Labour's conference and John Prescott drives 300 yards to make his speech - attacking people who used cars for unnecessary journeys. His was necessary, he said, because of his wife's hairdo.

October Peter Mandelson returns to the Cabinet, replacing Mo Mowlam as Northern Ireland Secretary.

November It is announced that Cherie Blair, 45, is pregnant.

December Elections in Northern Ireland end 25 years of direct rule from Westminster.

On December 31, the Millennium Dome opens - but rather than celebrate a thousand years of achievements, it begins a couple of years of squabbles.

2000

May Leo Blair is born, the first Downing Street baby for 150 years.

Tony Blair is slow hand-capped by the Women's Institute.

Ken Livingstone, standing as an Independent against the official Labour candidate Frank Dobson, is elected Mayor of London.

Gordon Brown attacks the elitism of Oxbridge after Tyneside student Laura Spence fails to win a place.

July Sixteen-year-old Euan Blair, pictured with his father, is found drunk and disorderly in Leicester Square.

August Gordon Brown marries Sarah Macaulay.

September The fuel protest causes the Conservatives to overtake Labour in the polls for the first - and only - time in five years. Across Europe, farmers and hauliers take to the streets to protest about fuel prices. In Britain, which has the Continent's highest rate of fuel tax, refineries and depots are blockaded, queues form at garages and supplies dry up. After a week, the protest is called off; within a couple of months, Labour's poll lead is restored.

October Four die in the Hatfield rail crash. Suddenly the parlous state of Britain's railways is at the top of the political agenda.

December George W Bush "wins" the US presidential election.

2001

January Peter Mandelson resigns for the second time after allegations that the millionaire Hinduja brothers obtained passports in exchange for donating £1m to the Millennium Dome. Europe Minister Keith Vaz is condemned for his links with the Hindujas and for failing to co-operate with the official inquiry.

February America and Britain launch airstrikes on Baghdad.

Foot-and-mouth is discovered among pigs at an abattoir in Essex. The source of the outbreak is allegedly traced to Northumberland. The British countryside closes down.

June The General Election, postponed from May because of the ravages of foot-and-mouth, is held. Labour wins historic second landslide with a 165 seat majority - despite John Prescott's famous punch. Turnout falls to 59 per cent. William Hague resigns as Conservative leader.

September September 11 catapults Tony Blair on to the world stage at a time of immense international crisis.

October "The war against terrorism" begins in Afghanistan.

Stephen Byers puts Railtrack into administration.

Mr Byers' special advisor Jo Moore is revealed to have suggested that September 11 was a "good day to bury bad news".

2002

February The Mittal affair engulfs the Government. It is suggested that the steel magnate donated to Labour funds and then received a letter of support from the Prime Minister in his bid to buy a Romanian steel plant.

The Department of Transport is engulfed by the resignations of Jo Moore and Martin Sixsmith over allegations that Ms Moore wanted to bury bad news on the day of Princess Margaret's funeral.

March MPs vote to ban hunting.

April Gordon Brown announces that 1p on National Insurance will fund enormous spending on the NHS over the next six years, so that by 2008 Britain will spend roughly the same amount of its income on healthcare as other European countries.