new identity after serving eight years for the murder, along with Robert Thompson. 22 June – Chancellor George Osborne presents the coalition government's emergency budget statement to the House of Commons. The most notable changes include a 2.5% increase in VAT to 20% and a 25% reduction in public spending. 25 June – David Cameron announces his intention to have all British troops home from Afghanistan by 2015. July 3 July – Christopher Brown, 29, is shot dead in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, by a gunman who badly wounds his 22-year-old girlfriend Samantha Stobbart. 4 July – PC David Rathband is badly wounded in another shooting incident in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The gunman is reported to be 37-year-old Raoul Moat, who is also named as a suspect for the incident in Gateshead yesterday. Mr Moat had been released from prison on 1 July after spending nine weeks in prison for assault. 5 July – Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announces that a referendum on introducing the alternative vote system for Westminster elections will be held on 5 May 2011. 7 July – The country commemorates the fifth anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, which killed 52 people on 7 July 2005. 9 July – Northumbria police are reported to have found an armed man, believed to be murder suspect Raoul Moat, in the local area and are negotiating with him to persuade him to give himself up. 10 July – The week-long police manhunt for Raoul Moat comes to an end after he shoots himself dead following a six-hour stand off with officers in a field at Rothbury, Northumberland. 11 July – The British Grand Prix at Silverstone is won by Mark Webber with Lewis Hamilton in second place. 14 July – David Cameron condemns individuals who have left tributes to Raoul Moat; floral tributes have been left at the scene of his suicide and a Facebook group has been set up in his memory. 16 July The High Court rules that Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, jailed for life in 1981 for murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others, should never be released from custody. Sutcliffe, now 64, spent the first four years of his imprisonment in a mainstream prison before being declared insane and moved to a secure mental hospital in 1985, where he has remained ever since. Jon Venables is sentenced to two years in prison after admitting distributing