Portrait of the Week – 29 January 2005

The government proposed that foreigners suspected of terrorism and held illegally at Belmarsh prison should be let out but somehow put under restriction. Four British citizens held in America’s prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba were flown home and arrested. Mr Michael Howard, the leader of the Conservative party, said he sought a substantial reduction in immigration, which has averaged 157,000 a year under Labour; if the Tories won the election they would withdraw Britain from the 1951 UN convention on refugees.