Portrait of the Week – 14 June 2003

Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told Parliament that only one of the five economic tests that would allow Britain to join the eurozone had been met; this was whether the City of London would remain Europe’s leading financial centre. But Mr Brown said that at the next Budget he would ‘consider the extent of progress and determine whether on the basis of the five economic tests which – if positive next year – would allow us at that time to put the issue before the British people in a referendum’. A Bill, stating the question to be asked, will be published this autumn. Mr Brown showed dissatisfaction with the rarity of fixed-rate mortgages and did not rule out using stamp duty and capital-gains tax to meddle with the market. Mr David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, said, ‘It would be better if we hadn’t published that dossier’ – the so-called ‘dodgy dossier’ on Iraq in January, part of which was lifted from a 12-year-old thesis.