Portrait of the week | 18 October 2003

At a specially reconvened hearing of the Hutton inquiry into circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the expert on Iraqi weapons, Sir Kevin Tebbit, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, said that Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, had chaired the meeting that agreed a ‘change of stance’, under which officials would confirm the scientist’s identity as the man who illicitly briefed Mr Andrew Gilligan, a BBC radio correspondent, if his name was put to them by reporters. Lord Hutton said that his report ‘might not be delivered and published before the New Year’. Mr Blair held talks at Downing Street with Mr Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach of Ireland; the leaders of Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists; and Mr Richard Haass, President George Bush’s special adviser on Northern Ireland; an aim was to arrange elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which has been suspended for a year.