Portrait of the Week – 10 May 2003

The Labour party suspended Mr George Galloway, an MP, from ‘holding office or representing the party’ while it investigated complaints that remarks he made during the war against Iraq might have constituted ‘behaviour that is prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the party’. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, and Mr Alan Milburn, the Secretary of State for Health, attempted to reduce a rebellion by Labour MPs against their plans to introduce ‘foundation’ status for some hospitals. Car drivers will be charged £3 (or £1 at night) to use the 27-mile M6Toll motorway in the West Midlands, which opens in 2004. Mr Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, blamed 19 local authorities for not passing on to schools money from the government; but Mr David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, said the accusation would not wash, and that redundancies were inevitable without more government funds. In local elections Labour ended up with 800 fewer seats than before and the Tories won more than 600 extra seats, making them the dominant party in local government for the first time since 1991. Someone called Mr Crispin Blunt resigned as an opposition spokesman on trade and industry on the evening of polling day, calling upon Mr Iain Duncan Smith to go. In elections for the Scottish Parliament, Labour won 50 seats (down from 56) out of 129; the Liberal Democrats 17; the Conservatives 18; the Scottish Nationalists 27 (down from 35); the Greens 7 and the Scottish Socialist party 6; turnout was 49 per cent. In elections for the Welsh Assembly, Labour won 30 of the 60 seats; Plaid Cymru won 12 (down from 17); turnout was 38 per cent. Elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly were cancelled again. Two suicide bombers who killed three in Tel Aviv were found to be British; Asif Mohammed Hanif, who died, came from Hounslow, west London, and Omar Khan Sharif, who escaped when his explosives did not go off, came from Derby.