Portrait of the Week - 26 July 2003

Dr David Kelly, a Ministry of Defence scientific expert on Iraqi weapons, was found dead near his home in Oxfordshire with a cut wrist and a container of pain-killers. Hours earlier he had appeared before the Commons foreign affairs select committee and, when asked if he was the main source for an article by Mr Andrew Gilligan that blamed Downing Street for ‘sexing up’ the government dossier on Iraq last September, he said, ‘My belief is that I am not the main source.’ Mr Andrew Mackinlay MP had said to him in a rough manner, ‘I reckon you’re chaff. You’ve been thrown up to divert our probing. Have you ever felt like a fall guy?’ Dr Kelly had voluntarily told his employers that he had met Mr Gilligan, but had then been put under pressure by the Ministry of Defence, being told that his pension was at risk because of his unauthorised meetings with journalists; between them the ministry and Downing Street’s press department confirmed to the press that he was the putative source. Meanwhile Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, had been given repeated ovations as he addressed both Houses of Congress in Washington. But within 48 hours, as he began a tour of Japan, South Korea and China, he was thrown into gloom and embarrassment, being asked at a press conference if he had blood on his hands. He appointed Lord Hutton, a judge, to hold an inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death. Lord Archer was released on parole from prison after serving two years of a four-year sentence for perjury. Thousands of travellers were held up, some for days, when British Airways ground staff went on unofficial strike over clocking-on; there was much complaint about lack of information for waiting passengers. Mr Adam Crozier, the chief executive of the Royal Mail, said that figures showing it loses 280,000 letters a week were ‘a major step in the right direction’, since last year it lost 500,000 letters a week.