The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 9 August 2003

A speedy round-up of the week's news

Lord Hutton began his inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence expert on Iraqi weapons, by disclosing part of a letter by the scientist to his superior, in which he said that, judging from the report by the BBC’s Andrew Gilligan about the government’s September dossier on Iraq, ‘I can only conclude one of three things: Gilligan has considerably embellished my meeting with him; he has met with other individuals who were intimately associated with the dossier; or he assembled comments from both multiple direct and indirect sources for his articles.’ Lord Hutton said he meant to call both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence to give evidence; the inquiry adjourned until after Dr Kelly’s funeral. One of the Prime Minister’s official spokesmen, Mr Tom Kelly, told a newspaper that Dr Kelly might have been a ‘Walter Mitty’ character; Mr Kelly later apologised. A Mori poll for the Financial Times gave the Tories the support of 38 per cent of voters, Labour 35 and the Liberal Democrats 21. The Communication Workers Union decided to ballot its 160,000 members on a strike that could stop postal services from October after it said that a pay offer from the Royal Mail had ‘more strings than the Philharmonic Orchestra’. The Office of Fair Trading fined Manchester United, the Football Association and JJB Sports a total of £18.6 million for fixing the prices of football shirts. Graeme Smith, the 22-year-old captain of South Africa, scored 259 in his innings against England in the second Test at Lord’s, after making 277 in the first Test. Thousands were delayed in sweltering trains after Network Rail imposed a 60mph speed limit on the West Coast main line in case the hot weather made rails buckle.

Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America confirmed the election of a homosexual apologist, Canon Gene Robinson, who lives with another man, as Bishop of New Hampshire.

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