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.