Portrait of the Week – 20 November 2004

A white paper proposed a ban on smoking in restaurants and pubs that serve hot food. It also proposed the banning of television advertisements for ‘unhealthy’ food before 9 p.m., but this would be ‘ineffective and disproportionate’ according to the television regulators, Ofcom. The Hunting Bill was amended in the Lords to restore the government’s original provisions for the licensing of hunts; when it returned to the Commons the amended Bill was defeated by 321 to 204. Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said in a speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London that Europe and America must co-operate to find peace in the Middle East: ‘It is not a sensible or intelligent response for us in Europe to ridicule American arguments and parody their political leadership,’ he said. Three days earlier he had been the first foreign head of government to be invited to Washington since Mr George Bush’s re-election as President.