Portrait of the Week – 30 November 2002

The Fire Brigades Union and employers’ representatives agreed to a deal on a 16 per cent pay rise, in the early hours of the morning on which an eight-day strike was to begin. But the office of Mr John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, said nothing could be done till 9 a.m., and in any case, since no details were available on reformed working practices (called ‘modernisation’ by the government), no commitment to funding the deal could be given. So the strike went ahead and Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, broadcast to the nation, saying, ‘This is a strike they can’t win. It would not be a defeat for the government, it would be a defeat for the country.’ Mr Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his autumn statement, said that he would have to borrow billions of pounds. The Law Lords ruled that ‘the Home Secretary should play no part in fixing the tariff of a convicted murderer, even if he does no more than confirm what the judges have recommended’; the government intends to amend the law to conform to the ruling.