LONDON:BRITISH PRIME minister Gordon Brown did not cancel a trip to Belfast yesterday at the last minute, despite a House of Commons gaffe by the British foreign secretary David Miliband, who told MPs that he had travelled there for the Hillsborough talks.
During a statement about last week’s conference on Afghanistan held in London, Mr Miliband was questioned by Conservative MP Bernard Jenkins about the prime minister’s reasons from being absent from the debate, given that he had hosted the summit.
“Where is he?” Mr Jenkins asked. Mr Miliband replied: “He’s in Northern Ireland, actually.”
Having been given a note by officials shortly afterwards, Mr Miliband corrected himself: “Although I had been reliably informed that the prime minister was on his way to Belfast, it now transpires that he is not on his way to Belfast because the situation in the ... for various reasons which I won’t go into actually.
Downing Street said it could not rule out a visit to Belfast by the prime minister, but he was planning to work in Number 10 today.
Mr Brown had been given a detailed briefing on the progress of the talks during a meeting in Downing Street yesterday by the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Shaun Woodward, and the two spoke again yesterday.
Last night, British sources rejected suggestions that Mr Brown had been “on the way to the airport and turned back at the last minute”.
