It was to him that Ms Lewinsky’s confidante, Linda Tripp, had passed more than 20 hours of tape-recorded conversations in which she reportedly related details of her alleged affair with Mr Clinton. This case, in which Ms Jones claims that Mr Clinton made unwelcome sexual advances to her while he was governor, is set to come to trial in May and the pre-trial stage was due to be end by the end of January.
The much more recent investigation into allegations that Mr Clinton had a relationship with Ms Lewinsky and prevailed upon her to lie about it – allegations which exploded into public view only last week – were already threatening to run into the Paula Jones investigation. The possible duplication of effort – which could have had unpredictable effects on both cases – was the unintended result of the decision, taking by the US Attorney General, Janet Reno, to hand the Lewinsky inquiries to Kenneth Starr.Mr Starr is the independent prosecutor originally appointed to handle the investigation into another area of Mr Clinton’s activity, the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas. He was given jurisdiction in the Monica Lewinsky case for two reasons: first, because one of the main figures implicated in the Whitewater case, Mr Clinton’s friend, Vernon Jordan, was also implicated in the Lewinsky case – it was he who is said to have found her a succession of jobs inside the White House.The second reason was that crucial evidence was already in his hands. As Mary Dejevsky explains, the ruling helps Mr Clinton’s cause, but does not mean that his problems are over. The ruling, from a judge in Arkansas, effectively separates the latest inquiry – into whether Mr Clinton had an affair with a White House trainee, Monica Lewinsky – from the earlier sexual harassment case brought by Paula Jones, a former employee of the state of Arkansas. President Clinton won a small victory in his fight to salvage his presidency yesterday when legal officers in the two sex inquiries pending against him agreed that the two cases should be kept separate.

David is preparing to take his GCSEs later this year, and Ian is in the final year of a media and cultural studies course at Liverpool University.”Glenda always stressed the importance of education,” said Mr Hoskins “So, they’ve done it for her And I think they would have made her proud.”. “Both the policeman and myself had searched the loft and found nothing, so when Katie asked if she could do something, I told her to look there, thinking that would be perfectly safe.”We heard Katie scream and I just ran up the ladder and got her out of there,” said Mr Hoskins.Mr Hoskins, who was divorced from Mrs Hoskins in 1991 but remained close friends, was desperate to protect his children, Katie, David, then 13, and Ian, then 23, from the outside world in the immediate aftermath of the murder.”At first, I kept them away from newspapers and television but, after a while, they said, Dad, we want to know what’s going on,” he said.Within months of the murder, Katie sat her GCSE exams, passing 10, including five Grade-As. A Commons official said it was unclear whether the relatively small section of moulding had fallen or was still hanging from the ceiling. Experts were trying to find out whether the building was safe for MPs to use.Dennis Skinner, Labour MP for Bolsover, said that he had his own theory. There had been “two rumbles” in the chamber the previous night, one when Mr Prescott talked about taking the Channel Tunnel rail link into public ownership and the other when Mr Skinner said the “troops were ready” to re-nationalise the railways. Both were greeted with huge cheers, he said.The Commons chamber has not been shut since the Second World War, when it was badly damaged by bombing raids and MPs sat for a time in Church House, across the road.. Structural engineers were called in to examine the extent of the damage and for a while it was not known whether the afternoon’s sitting would go ahead.

They refused to even confirm whether the piece of wooden moulding had even actually crashed on to the minister’s seat or not. However, it was confirmed that the chamber was closed to tourists yesterday morning.The damage was repaired in time for MPs to hear Tony Blair’s statement on Bloody Sunday yesterday afternoon, though some MPs who turned up early to reserve their seats were refused entry. It was a pure coincidence, of course. A lump of masonry detached itself from the ceiling over the government front bench on Wednesday night just after John Prescott had left the chamber. Some Labour MPs joked that the enormity of the Deputy Prime Minister’s plan to nationalise Eurostar had caused the very foundations of the House of Commons to shake.
Westminster officials were more po-faced about the incident, though.