Portrait of the Week – 17 July 2004

Lord Butler of Brockwell published his report into the intelligence failures that led to the government claiming, in a dossier published in 2002, that Saddam Hussein possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and could deploy them within 45 minutes. Lord Butler described the dossier as ‘seriously flawed’ and criticised some of the language used by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, but declined to blame any individual or call for anyone to resign. The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, unveiled his latest ‘comprehensive spending review’. More than 84,000 Civil Service jobs in London will disappear by 2008 and £30 billion of redundant government property will be sold, hopefully realising ‘efficiency savings’ of £21.5 billion a year. Yet overall public spending will rise by £62 billion a year, an increase of 2.8 per cent in real terms. NHS spending will rise from £69 billion to £92 billion a year, and education spending from £63 billion to £77 billion.