That is on the recommendation of the UN for their own protection. But the general position remains that British troops will play their full part in UN operations.”Peace stakes raised, page 12. It is alarming,” Mr Janowski said.The Ministry of Defence in London said: “We are aware of an incident when a UNHCR convoy was hijacked and a possible threat to British personnel in Bosnia. The UN has suspended British aid convoys as a precaution and we hope to restart them soon.”Mr Portillo told MPs: “I am aware of a situation that has arisen in central Bosnia where mujahedin appear to be operating with some sort of vendetta against British troops and for the time being the UN has withdrawn British troops from certain convoy escort duties in central Bosnia.

One of the gunmen spoke Arabic and UN officials believe he was a mujahedin fighter – a volunteer from an Islamic nation who joined the Muslim-led government’s fight against Serb separatists.The UN has linked the incident to the killing of a mujahedin fighter two weeks ago by a British UN soldier guarding an armoured personnel carrier during a reconnaissance near Bugojno and opened fire when he believed the man was about to shoot him, a UN spokesman said “They seem to have been looking for Britons They may be carrying a grudge. They let them go when they discovered they were not British, said Kris Janowski, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Sarajevo. Mr Clarke in the same weekend interview stressed his enthusiastic support for the “policy we have all agreed”.Patten’s speech, page 19. PETER VICTOR

Michael Portillo, the Defence Secretary, last night announced that British aid convoys in central Bosnia had been suspended over fears that foreign Islamic fighters are hunting down Britons.
Mr Portillo told the Commons the withdrawal had been ordered by the United Nations to protect soldiers from “vendettas” by mujahedin fighters serving with the Bosnian army.A UN refugee official said yesterday that the move followed an incident last Sunday when two Norwegian aid workers were held up at gunpoint by two men and threatened with execution. His plea not to disrupt the “truce” in the party on Europe will be seen as a warning to Cabinet right-wingers campaigning to persuade Mr Major to rule out a single currency in the next Parliament.Although Mr Major is understood to have listened sympathetically to a group of ministers, including Lord Cranborne, leader of the Lords, for a manifesto commitment not to join a single currency, Mr Clarke and Michael Heseltine, the Deputy Prime Minister, are thought to be resistant to a change in the stance of neither ruling EMU membership in or out. Mr Hurd urged “all Conservatives to support the European policy now being carried forward by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary”. Nevertheless, much of Mr Patten’s trip has been devoted to Hong Kong affairs.

In meetings with Mr Rifkind, the governor is pressing for holders of Hong Kong British passports to be given rights of British residence.He is especially pressing the case of 7,000 residents of Indian origin who could become stateless.In a speech to the Conservative Group for Europe last night Mr Hurd dispelled any notion that he was at odds with Mr Rifkind over his Chatham House speech, in which he said Britain should not subordinate its own interests to maintain international influence. To do much better they must do less.”Mr Patten’s speech came as Mr Waldegrave warned the Tory backbench finance committee that tough spending cuts would be needed in the current round.In Hong Kong, Mr Patten’s intervention will be seen as the start of his re-entry into British politics. But he said that the big European states were “muscle-bound but weak, ambitious but derided. Nor did he suggest in his speech to the Conservative Political Centre to what level expenditure should be cut. However, Mr Clarke also repeated his commitment to a “high quality” health service, higher standards of education and the welfare state.While insisting that he did not advocate a “slash-and-burn” approach to public spending, Mr Patten used a comparison with Hong Kong and other vibrant Asian economies to stress that “we shall only be able to restore the authority of states by shrinking what they do”.Mr Patten said he was not calling for “an ideological assault on the public service”.

The British percentage currently is 43 per cent.Mr Patten’s conversion mirrors that of his friend, William Waldegrave, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who earlier this month said the further that spending, as a percentage of national income, could be driven below 40 per cent the better.Some Tory MPs will see it as a sign of the reunification of left and right in the run-up to the general election, as it coincided with an endorsement by Douglas Hurd, former foreign secretary, of what is seen as the more Eurosceptic stance of his successor, Malcolm Rifkind.Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor, said last weekend in a BBC interview that it was desirable to work towards ensuring that the state “really should never take more than 40 per cent of GDP”. DONALD MACINTYRE

Political Editor
Chris Patten, the Governor of Hong Kong, last night warned that Britain needs radically to “shrink” the state to compete with “booming” Asian economies where only 16 to 25 per cent of national income goes on public spending.The former Conservative chairman became the most authoritative figure on the one-nation left of the party to back a massive reduction in state spending as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product. He will be participating in an international symposium on ‘Dynasties’ at the Tate Gallery, 30 Nov-1 Dec; (details: 0171-887 8758). Essentially of artisan class – servers of apprenticeship, members of guilds, guarders of trade secrets – they have acquired an indispensable role as the image-makers of Tudor high society.n ‘Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630′ is at the Tate Gallery, London SW1 to 7 Jan 1996 (0171-887 8000)n Charles Nicholl is the author of ‘The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe’, Picador pounds 7.99, and ‘The Creature in the Map’, Cape, pounds 18.99. An inscription celebrates his work “by pencil’s trade” and the rewards it has brought him: “What parents bore by just renown, my skill maintains.”And so a new professional group edges up the increasingly crowded and competitive social ladder. Easily missed is the wry self-portrait by George Gower (1579). It is the only large-size self-portrait in existence by a 16th-century British artist He holds a palette and a paintbrush.