Portrait of the week
Portrait of the week: State pension to rise, prisoners released early and a new owner for The Spectator
Home The government won by 348 to 228 a Commons vote on limiting the winter fuel allowance for pensioners to those…
Portrait of the week: UK cancels Israel exports, Grenfell fire report released and AfD victory in Germany
Home The government cancelled 30 out of 350 export licences for arms to Israel on items that it said could…
Portrait of the week: Sir Keir’s tax warning, Russian air attacks and another prisons crisis
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, speaking in the garden of 10 Downing Street, warned that the Budget in…
Portrait of the week: prisoners are freed, Ted Baker closes and train drivers announce strikes
Home Emergency measures, known as Operation Early Dawn, were brought in to ease prison overcrowding. Defendants would be summoned to…
Portrait of the week: riot justice, Olympic success and Ukraine’s Russian advance
Home Riots subsided after 7 August, a night when many were expected but only empty streets or demonstrations against riots…
Portrait of the week: riots and Russia’s prisoner swap
Home A week of riots, with violence against the police, threats to Muslims, burning of vehicles and looting (Greggs, Shoezone,…
Portrait of the week: Stabbings in Southport, a £22bn ‘black hole’ and Tory leadership nominations
Home Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said she had found a £21.9 billion hole, and a black one…
Portrait of the week: IT meltdown, riots in Leeds and the wrong kind of pandemic
Home Britain enjoyed its share of the worldwide failure of 8.5 million computers reliant on Microsoft, through a faulty update…
Portrait of the week: King’s Speech, Trump shot and Rouen cathedral in flames
Home The government funnelled three dozen bills into the King’s Speech, highlighting one to make a specific offence of spiking…
Portrait of the Week: Starmer’s first steps, Biden’s wobble and Australia’s egg shortage
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, appointed several ministers who are not MPs, but will be created life peers.…
Portrait of the week: gambling politicians, gender rows and a free Julian Assange
Home The Conservative party withdrew its support from two parliamentary candidates, Craig Williams (who was parliamentary private secretary to the…
Portrait of the Week: Supermajorities, falling inflation and rammed cows
Home The electorate mulled over the words of Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary: ‘You don’t want to have somebody receive…
Portrait of the Week: Sunak’s D-Day misstep, Michael Mosley’s death and Macron’s snap election
Home The Conservatives promised to reduce National Insurance from 8 per cent to 6 per cent (and abolish it for…
Portrait of the Week: Farage returns, Abbott reselected and Trump guilty
Home Nigel Farage took over leadership of the Reform party from Richard Tice and is standing for parliament in Clacton.…
Portrait of the Week: Sunak’s downpour, national service and the ‘triple lock plus’
Home Parliament was dissolved, leaving no MPs until the general election on 4 July. With hours to go, Diane Abbott had…
Portrait of the Week: Infected blood apologies, falling inflation and XL bully attacks
Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said: ‘I want to make a wholehearted and unequivocal apology’ for a ‘decades-long moral…
Portrait of the Week: Natalie Elphicke defects, wages rise and Switzerland takes Eurovision
Home The parliamentary Labour party shook itself uneasily after Natalie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, crossed the floor of the…
Portrait of the week: Tory defections, local elections and a China defence hack
Home The local elections proved dreadful for the Conservatives but not quite perfect for Labour. The Conservatives lost 474 of…
Portrait of the Week: Yousaf resigns, Charles resumes duties and Poulter joins Labour
Home Humza Yousaf resigned as the First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National party, posts he had…
Portrait of the Week: Huw Edwards resigns, Mark Menzies resigns and Frank Field dies
Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said that within 12 weeks asylum-seekers could be flown to Rwanda. This followed the…
Portrait of the Week: the war on smoking, Trump’s trial and O.J.’s death
Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said that British fighter jets had shot down ‘a number of drones’ fired at…
Portrait of the Week: Tory phishing, tension over Rafah and Cameron in America
Home The review by Dr Hilary Cass of gender-identity services for people under 18 called for an end to prescribing…
Portrait of the Week: hate crimes, surprise knighthoods and flaming rickshaws
Home The Hate Crime and Public Order Act came into effect in Scotland, making it a crime to communicate or…
