Eleventh hour_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Eleventh hour

1. Chancellor Gordon Brown only gave his backing to the invasion of Iraq at the 11th hour, according to his former Cabinet colleague David Blunkett.

The Guardian and Daily Mail, which are serializing Mr Blunkett’s memoirs, said the book reveals the “chaos” and rows in Tony Blair’s war cabinet.

Ministers were said to have asked Mr Blair searching questions about the lack of post-war planning in Iraq.

And Mr Brown allegedly questioned the point of going to war cabinet meetings.

The chancellor complained that he learned more about what was going on from the media, according to Mr Blunkett’s account.

He finally only gave his support for the invasion of Iraq “at the 11th hour”, the newspapers said.

- Brown backed war ‘at 11th hour’, BBC.co.uk, October 9, 2006.

2. Rupert Murdoch has pulled off a dramatic coup by winning the battle for Dow Jones at the 11th hour.

In an announcement this morning, Mr Murdoch’s News Corp said it had agreed to buy Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, for $60 a share, or $5.6bn.

Mr Murdoch, whose hopes of gaining control of The Wall Street Journal appeared to lie in tatters on Monday, managed to swing 37pc of the voting stock controlled by the founding Bancroft family.