At 5pm on 12 June 2003, Charles Falconer - the then housing and regeneration minister - was chairing a meeting of the Thames Gateway Strategic Partnership when he was interrupted by his assistant telling him he'd got a call - from the prime minister. "Excuse me," he said to the ministers and council leaders, "I'll be back in a few minutes." But he never returned. By the time he next sat down, he was lord chancellor of the UK, swapping regeneration for radical reform of the British constitution.
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