Portrait of the week
Portrait of the week: Spring Statement, Heathrow fire and Prince Harry quits his charity
Home In the Spring Statement, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made further cuts to benefits (such as freezing…
Portrait of the week: Welfare war, gold prices soar and gang jailed for toilet heist
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, entertained 29 other national leaders online to seek a way of guaranteeing the…
Portrait of the week: Spies in Norfolk, rats in Birmingham and Denmark ditches letter deliveries
Home Three Bulgarians were found guilty of spying for Russia as part of a cell that plotted to kidnap and…
Portrait of the week: Zelensky at Sandringham, rail fare rise and Duchess of Sussex’s Chinese takeaways
Home After the humiliation of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in Washington, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, quickly convened…
Portrait of the week: Foreign aid cut, Pope in hospital and King pulls a pint
Home Before flying to Washington, Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said: ‘We have to be ready to play our…
Portrait of the week: US and Russia talk, Chiltern Firehouse burns and Duchess of Sussex rebrands
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said that, to guarantee the security of Ukraine, he was ‘ready and willing’…
Portrait of the week: Andrew Gwynne sacked, Trump saves Prince Harry and a £30m refund over moths
Home Andrew Gwynne was sacked as a health minister and suspended from the Labour party for making jokes about a…
Portrait of the week: Shoplifting surges, Trump eyes Gaza Strip and Norway’s government collapses
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, flew to Brussels for an EU summit, sought a ‘reset’ of relations and…
Portrait of the week: DeepSeek, Duke of Sussex’s damages and an iceberg the size of Cornwall
Home The government would invest 2.6 per cent of GDP a year to create growth, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of…
Portrait of the week: Trump’s inauguration, Israel-Hamas ceasefire and cardboard humans comfort lonely fish
Home Axel Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty to the murder of three girls in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed…
Portrait of the week: Tulip Siddiq quits, Sturgeon splits from husband and Trump spared jail
Home Tulip Siddiq resigned as economic secretary to the Treasury, although she was found not to have broken the ministerial…
Portrait of the week: grooming gangs, wildfires and a Littler victory
Home Responding to a rejection by Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, of calls for a government inquiry into historical child…
Portrait of the week: Reform’s rising membership, peerages and an 11lb puffball
Home Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, said that the party now had more members than the Conservatives. On…
Portrait of the year: Subpostmasters scandal, Rishi in the rain and Syrian rebels topple regime
January After an ITV drama, the government suddenly proposed to do something about the unjust prosecution of sub-postmasters. Junior doctors…
Portrait of the week: Labour’s ‘plan for change’, falling productivity and 20,000 wolves in the EU
Home The Labour government announced a ‘Plan for Change’ that it refused to call a reset. Sir Chris Wormald was…
Portrait of the week: Storm Bert, Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire and Putin gives cockatoos to North Korea
Home A white paper outlined measures to counter economic inactivity (which had risen by September to 41.2 per cent among…
Portrait of the week: Rising inflation, electric car targets and a tax on flatulent livestock
Home Thousands of farmers protested in Westminster against inheritance tax on farms. Tesco, Amazon, Greggs and 76 other chains belonging…
Portrait of the week: Justin Welby resigns, interest rates cut and Trump announces appointments
Home Justin Welby resigned as Archbishop of Canterbury, after not reporting to the authorities what he knew in 2013 of…
Portrait of the week: Trump’s victory, Kemi’s shadow cabinet and footballer killed by lightning
Home Kemi Badenoch, the new leader of the Conservative party, appointed a shadow cabinet. She made Robert Jenrick, whom she…
Portrait of the week: Tax rises, a cheddar heist and snail delivery man gets slapped
Home Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, repeatedly mentioning an inherited ‘£22 billion black hole’, raised taxes by £40…
Portrait of the week: Budget leaks, prisoners released and Israel kills Hamas leader
Home Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was expected to freeze tax thresholds in the Budget on 30 October,…
Portrait of the week: Weight loss jabs and England’s German manager
Home Neither Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, nor Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ruled out a rise…
Portrait of the week: Sue Gray resigns and the Chagos Islands are handed back
Home Sue Gray resigned as chief of staff to Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister. She will become Sir Keir’s envoy…
Portrait of the week: Iran fires missiles into Israel, Rosie Duffield resigns and Mount Everest gets taller
Home The Conservatives at their party conference examined the four surviving candidates for leader – Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, James…
Portrait of the week: Starmer’s sausages slip-up, Israel’s strikes on Lebanon and Amazon staff summoned back to office
Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, in his speech to the Labour party conference in Liverpool, said that ‘if…
