Portrait of the Week – 24 August 2002

Mr John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, on being asked about British support for American action against Iraq, said: ‘There is no serious division inside the Cabinet and there are debates inside the Cabinet.’ A school caretaker, Ian Huntley, aged 28, was charged with the murder of two ten-year-old girls, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, whose bodies were found near Lakenheath, Suffolk, two weeks after their disappearance from their homes at Soham, Cambridgeshire. He was held at Rampton hospital and was unfit to appear before magistrates. Maxine Carr, aged 25, who lived with him, was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. The government proposed a law against using mobile phones while driving. An NOP poll found that 49 per cent of voters would vote No to the euro if the government said the five economic tests had been passed and called a referendum; 36 per cent would vote Yes; it is the highest percentage lead for opponents since the monthly poll began in January, when the Yes side had a 1 per cent lead.