Portrait of the week
Portrait of the week: A lockdown exit plan, Duke of Edinburgh in hospital and Texas in deep freeze
Home The much-anticipated decriminalisation of two consenting people meeting over coffee on a park bench was declared for 8 March…
Portrait of the week: Hotel quarantine starts, Ribblehead Viaduct cracks and a royal guest for Oprah
Home The target was achieved of vaccinating, by the middle of February, about 15 million people of 70 or over,…
Portrait of the week: A royal baby, Boohoo buyouts and France legalises lunch al desko
Home On Sunday 7 February, as the week began, 11,465,210 people in the United Kingdom had received a first vaccination…
Portrait of the week: Variants, vaccines and goodbye to Captain Sir Tom Moore
Home About 80,000 people in eight places in Surrey, London, Kent, Hertfordshire, Southport and Walsall were asked in door-to-door visits…
Portrait of the week: Vaccine battles, illegal haircuts and Biden’s chat with Boris
Home Supplies of the Pfizer vaccine (made in Belgium) were feared to be at risk from a declaration by the…
Portrait of the week: Vaccination, inauguration and a food box denunciation
Home The government undertook to offer a first dose of vaccine to the adult population of the UK by September.…
Portrait of the week: New year, new lockdown
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced harsher coronavirus restrictions in England, resembling those last March, except that bubbles continued.…
Portrait of the year: Coronavirus, falling statues, banned Easter eggs and compulsory Scotch eggs
January Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, signed the EU withdrawal agreement, sent from Brussels by train. Sajid Javid, the Chancellor…
Portrait of the week: Vaccine shots, Brexit stutters and a frosty reception for the royals
Home The Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine began, rather slowly, to be given to some old people in hospital and health workers.…
Portrait of the week: Tiers, Scotch eggs and a devastated high street
Home The Commons voted by 291 votes to 78 for new coronavirus regulations putting 55 million people in England into…
Portrait of the week: Christmas is on, Trump is off and Piglet stars on a 50p piece
Home The AstraZeneca vaccine developed by the University of Oxford was found to be 70 per cent effective — 90…
Portrait of the week: Cummings goes, Corbyn returns and pigeon sells for £1.4m
Home Dominic Cummings, the chief adviser to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, left Downing Street after a week in which…
Portrait of the week: Vaccine hopes up, Zoom shares down and Biden calls Boris
Home Pfizer and BioNTech announced a vaccine against Covid-19 of 90 per cent efficacy from two injections three weeks apart.…
Portrait of the week: England’s lockdown, America’s meltdown and houses fall down
Home The government imposed a lockdown on England to last until 2 December. On television, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister,…
Portrait of the week: Shopping bans in Wales, soft drinks in Scotland and stowaways at sea
Home Wales, entering a 17-day ‘firebreak’, closed most shops by law but then tried to stop supermarkets selling ‘non-essential’ items…
Portrait of the week: A Manchester stand-off, a Presidential showdown and a Brexit culture clash
Home After ten days spent trying to persuade Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, to accede to the city…
Portrait of the week: new alerts, birthday honours and fires on Kilimanjaro
Home ‘The weeks and months ahead will continue to be difficult and will test the mettle of this country,’ Boris…
Portrait of the week: Boris’s wind power pledge, Trump catches Covid and James Bond kills Cineworld
Home Coronavirus was on the increase. At the beginning of the week, Sunday 4 October, total deaths (within 28 days…
Portrait of the week: Curfew street parties, Trump’s taxes and a bone-eating vulture
Home More than a quarter of the population of the United Kingdom (three-fifths of the Welsh, a third of the…
Portrait of the week: New Covid restrictions, a Supreme Court vacancy and an earthquake in Leighton Buzzard
Home Pubs and restaurants would have to close at ten o’clock, under new coronavirus restrictions announced by Boris Johnson, the…
Portrait of the week: new laws, illegal mingling and bungled tests
Home At one minute past midnight on Monday, new laws came into force prohibiting households in England increasing their numbers…
Portrait of the week: banned gatherings, stopped presses, and Frogmore’s refurbishment
Home Gatherings of more than six people from more than one household were made a crime in England from 14…
Portrait of the week: Case takes over civil service, Zoom profits rocket and Ocado adopts M&S
Home Simon Case, aged 41, the private secretary to the Duke of Cambridge 2018-20, was appointed Cabinet Secretary and Head…
Portrait of the week: BBC drops songs, museum drops Sloane, and KFC and John Lewis drop slogans
Home Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, made pupils wear face-coverings in school corridors. It didn’t take long for…