Portrait of the Week – 27 September 2003

The Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon told the Hutton inquiry that there was ‘not a shred of evidence’ that he had sought to identify the Ministry of Defence weapons expert Dr David Kelly as the source of Andrew Gilligan’s BBC report on disquiet over the government’s dossier on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Lord Hutton then released the diaries of the Prime Minister’s former director of communications, Alastair Campbell, who wrote of a meeting with Mr Hoon to discuss using Dr Kelly as a means of discrediting Mr Gilligan; ‘I agreed it would fuck Gilligan,’ wrote Mr Campbell. Richard Hatfield, head of personnel at the Ministry of Defence, described as ‘outstanding’ the support given to Dr David Kelly before he committed suicide. The Liberal Democrats won a by-election in Brent East, overturning a 13,000 Labour majority and also overtaking the Conservative candidate, who was pushed into third place. The local government minister Nick Raynsford admitted that council tax had reached the ‘level of acceptability’ and suggested that the government was looking for something else to tax instead.