November 1997: Formula One and Bernie Ecclestone

After only six months into being prime minister, Blair faced allegations that Labour had accepted £1m from Bernie Ecclestone, the F1 chief, and had then exempted the sport from a ban on tobacco advertising. Blair eventually apologised and returned the cash — although the exemption remained. It was, said an aide, his “worst week since the election”. But such was the afterglow from Blair’s victory that nobody appreciated quite how bad it was at the time

December 1998: Goodbye Mandy

Peter Mandelson was one of the architects of new Labour and Blair had appointed him trade and industry secretary. It emerged that Mandelson had borrowed £373,000 from Geoffrey Robinson, a Treasury minister and an ally of Gordon Brown. Both were forced to resign. A worst week for both Blair and Brown

February 2002: Bad news

At the Department of Transport, Jo Moore, a special adviser, resigned and Martin Sixsmith, director of communications, was sacked in a row over government spinning. At the same time Blair came under pressure over a letter sent from Downing Street to the Romanian government. It supported a business deal by Lakshmi Mittal, the billionaire who happened to be a Labour donor. “The resignations brought the worst week of Tony Blair’s premiership . . . to a bloody end, ” said one report

July 2003: David Kelly

For weeks Campbell pursued a vicious argument with the BBC over a news report on doubts about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. The source for the report, Dr David Kelly, committed suicide after his name leaked from government circles. It left Blair and Campbell facing the “worst personal crisis” of their careers, said one report

January 2004: Hutton report

By chance the report of Lord Hutton into the death of Kelly coincided with a vote on Blair’s controversial plans to introduce top-up fees for university students. “Tony Blair prepared for his worst week in politics”, began one report. But he lived to fight yet more worst weeks. The Hutton report proved soft and Blair scraped through the fee debate by six votes

July 2004: Butler report

The failure to find WMD in Iraq and the continuing insurgency made Blair’s case for war look weak. The inquiry by Lord Butler into the handling of intelligence was damning in its detail, saying that sources had been patchy. But nobody asked Butler whether he felt Blair should resign

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