Portrait of the Week – 4 December 2004

Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, juggled his black hole and his Golden Rule in a pre-Budget statement. Mr Oliver Letwin, the shadow Chancellor, said he would ‘expect’ the Tories to make at least ‘one specific tax pledge that we will fulfil in the first Budget’. Mr Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political face of the Irish Republican Army, held talks with Mr Hugh Orde, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland at No. 10 Downing Street. The Revd Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, met General John de Chastelain, head of the international decommissioning body, and the next day met Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister. The idea was to re-establish the Northern Ireland Assembly, with Sinn Fein and the DUP providing ministers. Sir Alan Budd, the provost of Queen’s College, Oxford, and from 1991 to 1997 the chief economic adviser to the Treasury, was asked to look into accusations that Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, had improperly ‘fast-tracked’ a visa application for Miss Leoncia Casalme, the nanny employed by Mrs Kimberly Quinn, the publisher of The Spectator, with whom he had an affair between 2001 and 2004. Mr Blunkett presented a Bill to force people to buy identity cards. The Healthcare Commission, the quango that inspects the National Health Service, adjusted its hospital ratings: ‘The holy grail is to provide information to judge the quality of care not by whether a place is rated overall as two or three star, but by how my mother-in-law will do if she has her hip replaced,’ said Sir Ian Kennedy, its chairman. Rail fares are to rise by an average of 4 per cent in the New Year, more than the rate of inflation. England toured Zimbabwe, though the cricketers went in fear of having to shake hands with President Robert Mugabe.