Portrait of the Week – 2 November 2002

Miss Estelle Morris resigned as Secretary of State for Education, saying she was not up to running a big department. She was replaced by Mr Charles Clarke, who was replaced as Labour party chairman by Mr John Reid, who was replaced as Northern Ireland Secretary by Mr Paul Murphy, who was replaced as Welsh Secretary by Mr Peter Hain, who was replaced as Minister for Europe by Mr Denis MacShane. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, had an argument at the end of the European Union summit in Brussels, which led President Jacques Chirac of France to say: ‘You have been very rude and I have never been spoken to like this before.’ Mr Blair himself might have had reason to be annoyed, since Mr Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany had agreed between them that spending under the Common Agricultural Policy should remain much at present levels until 2013.