Portrait of the Week – 3 May 2003

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said before local elections that ‘the issue of reform of public services in health, in education, in criminal justice – this is the big challenge that this government and the Labour party faces’. His words were seen partly as a warning to the Left of his party and partly as a demonstration that his mind was on domestic affairs. He then flew off to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin for talks about the future of Iraq; Mr Putin rejected Mr Blair’s call for the lifting of sanctions against Iraq and emphasised that the existence of weapons of mass destruction must be resolved. Mr Blair had earlier said that Mr Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, had not brought a clear answer from the Irish Republican Army to the question, ‘Is there going to be an end to all paramilitary activity of the sort that gave rise to the very problems we have?’ Mr Alan Milburn, the Secretary of State for Health, said that observers would be sent to airports in countries where Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome was rife to see if passengers bound for Britain were being screened.