Portrait of the Week – 8 May 2004

Labour published a summary of its achievements, under the title Britain is Working. Mr Tony Blair celebrated the seventh anniversary of his becoming prime minister even more quietly than Lady Thatcher celebrated the 25th anniversary of her becoming prime minister. Dr Paul Drayson, who used to run PowderJect, a company awarded a £32 million government contract, and Sir Kumar Bhattacharyya were two donors to the Labour party among its 23 nominees as new peers; but the Tories had three donors among its five new peers, including Sir Stanley Kalms. Mr Blair visited Dublin to make optimistic noises with Mr Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach, about the future of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which has been suspended since October 2002. Photographs purporting to show a British soldier urinating on a hooded Iraqi, kicking him and beating him with a rifle were published by the Daily Mirror, which said that the soldier came from the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment; but military experts cast doubts over the genuineness of the photographs.