Portrait of the Week – 24 September 2005

The government decided to put off overhauling council tax by revaluing houses until after the next election. The National Health Service, despite unprecedented increases in government spending on it, went into the red for the first time in five years, with a deficit of £250 million, which Sir Nigel Crisp, its chief executive, pointed out was only 0.4 per cent of its £69.7 billion budget. Mr Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, proposed keeping suspected terrorists in jail for three months without charge; but he inadvertently sent out a letter that retained an earlier draft of his views, including the sentence, ‘I believe there is room for debate as to whether we should go as far as three months.’ In a speech reported before its delivery, Mr Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said that some areas in Britain were becoming ‘fully fledged ghettos — literal black holes’.