Portrait of the Week – 12 November 2005

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, insisted on pressing ahead with a Bill to allow police to hold anyone suspected of a terrorist offence for 90 days without charge. The government prepared legislation to allow terrorists who had fled Northern Ireland before the Good Friday Agreement to return to the province without prosecution. Six men were arrested in connection with the £26.5 million Northern Bank robbery in Belfast last December, and two were released without charge. The High Court heard a case for compensation by more than 5,000 serving and former officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (now the Police Service of Northern Ireland), which they said had failed those who suffered lasting effects from traumas in dealing with terrorism. Mr Hu Jintao, the ruler of China, came to Britain on a state visit, staying at Buckingham Palace. A gas pipeline from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Bacton in Norfolk which had exported 46 billion cubic metres since it opened in 1998 began to import gas at a rate of 23 billion cubic metres a year.