The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 29 May 2004

A speedy round-up of the week's news

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said that political control of military action would pass to the Iraqi government after 30 June. Speaking at his regular monthly press conference, he said, ‘Let me make it a hundred per cent clear: after June 30 there will be the full transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi government. If there is a political decision as to whether you go into a place like Fallujah in a particular way, that has to be done with the consent of the Iraqi government.’ British troops should leave Iraq now, according to 35 per cent of respondents to an ICM poll for the Guardian; 45 per cent said they thought they should remain in Iraq as long as necessary. Two British civilians were killed when their vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Baghdad; one of them was Bob Morgan, a retired senior project director for BP on a six-month contract for the Foreign Office, seconded to the Coalition Provisional Authority to advise the Iraqi oil minister. Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, flew to New York for a meeting of the G8 group of leading economies, which called on oil producers ‘to provide adequate supplies to ensure that world oil prices return to levels consistent with lasting global economic prosperity and stability’; but a price above $40 a barrel adds £2 billion a year to British tax revenues. Of those who told a YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph that they were very likely to vote in the European elections on 10 June, 31 per cent intended to vote Conservative, 23 Labour, 18 United Kingdom Independence party, 15 Liberal Democrats and 6 Green. Foreign guests of the government, but not British voters, will be able to watch proceedings in the House of Commons from seats forward of the glass screen in the Strangers’ Gallery, following a security review after guests of a Labour peeress threw condoms filled with purple-dyed flour at Mr Blair.

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