Portrait of the week
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…
Portrait of the week: Keir Starmer’s free clothes, Huw Edwards sentenced and Tupperware faces bankruptcy
Home Sir Keir Starmer met Giorgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy, in Rome and said that sending funds to…
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.…
