Portrait of the Week – 5 July 2003

The government set out some pretty rum plans for homosexual partnerships, securing tax benefits and severance by ‘divorce’, in a paper called ‘Civil Partnership: A framework for the recognition of same-sex couples’. After a last-minute procedural concession by the government, the Commons voted by 362 to 154 for an outright ban on hunting. A High Court judge criticised the Health and Safety Executive for wasting public money by pursuing a £3 million prosecution, now dropped, of the Metropolitan Police for failing to warn policemen of the dangers of climbing on to roofs. The High Court upheld action by Oftel to reduce charges for telephoning from British Telecom to mobile telephone networks and between networks. Connex, the train operator, had its franchise removed by the Strategic Rail Authority. Network Rail, the successor to Railtrack, said it hoped to make savings of 20 per cent by 2007, mainly by cutting staff from 14,000 to 12,000. Mr Alastair Campbell, the director of communications and strategy at the Prime Minister’s office, used the opportunity of his appearance before the Commons foreign affairs select committee to launch into a perplexing argument with the BBC, focusing on a report on Today on 29 May by Andrew Gilligan, who had quoted an unnamed ‘British official’ as saying of the government dossier on Iraq published on 24 September: ‘It was transformed in the week before it was published to make it sexier. The classic example was the statement that weapons of mass destruction were ready to use within 45 minutes.’ Mr Gilligan had added: ‘This official told us that the transformation …took place at the behest of Downing Street.’ Mr Campbell told the committee: ‘He said I sexed it up and I made changes against the wishes of the [intelligence] agencies. That is a lie.’ In following days the BBC was asked to apologise and refused to.