Portrait of the Week – 26 March 2005

Private Johnson Beharry, 25, was awarded the Victoria Cross for valour on 1 May 2004 during an incident in Iraq. The government admitted that Camilla Parker Bowles would become Queen if she was married to the Prince of Wales when he became King. Mr Michael Howard, the leader of the Conservative party, said he would give parliamentary time if he were prime minister to a Bill to reduce the upper limit for abortion from 24 to 20 weeks. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, said, ‘The policy supported by Mr Howard is one that we would also commend, on the way to a full abandonment of abortion.’ Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said it should not be an election issue. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said there was ‘more and more of a shared unhappiness and bewilderment around our law and its effects’. West Mercia Crown Prosecution Service announced that no prosecution would be pursued in the case of a late abortion in 2001 of a child with a cleft palate that had been brought for judicial review by the Revd Joanna Jepson. Mr Bob Quick, the Chief Constable of Surrey, said that constables spent nearly 90 per cent of their time filling in forms instead of fighting crime. A fraud case involving the building of London’s Jubilee line extension collapsed after two years; there will be no retrial. Police foiled a computer raid on the London branch of Sumitomo bank that would have sent £220 million to ten bank accounts around the world. An opinion poll by YouGov found that 40 per cent wanted Mr Gordon Brown as prime minister, and 30 per cent Mr Blair. GNER paid £1.3 billion for the East Coast mainline 10-year franchise. Mrs Margaret Dixon had a successful operation on her shoulder — which had been postponed several times last year and made into a political symbol — at Warrington General Hospital.