Portrait of the week
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…
Portrait of the week: A-level chaos, quarantine confusion and revolution
Home The government seemed to be taken strangely unaware by the frenzy of recrimination that came its way when results…
Portrait of the week: Employment falls, exam failures and a roundabout rigmarole
Home In fine weather with calm seas, 565 migrants in four days crossed the Channel in small craft. French officials…
Portrait of the week: Local lockdowns, busy beaches and an explosion in Beirut
Home Some 2.7 million people in Greater Manchester and parts of Lancashire and West Yorkshire, where many Muslims live, were…
Portrait of the week: Second wave fears, cash for cyclists and a cat catches Covid
Home At a few hours’ notice, the government removed Spain from the list of countries from which it was possible…
Portrait of the week: Vaccine hopes, the Russia report and a knighthood for Captain Tom
Home A coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, tested on 1,077 people, was found to induce antibodies and…
Portrait of the week: Face masks in, Huawei out and Amazon’s TikTok trouble
Home New regulations would compel people to wear a face covering in shops in England from 24 July on pain…
Portrait of the week: Sunak’s statement, shop closures and a hoo-ha over Boohoo
Home Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced measures intended to stimulate the economy. Under a £111 million scheme,…
Portrait of the week: Boris does press-ups, pubs reopen and Leicester locks down
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said he was ‘as fit as a butcher’s dog’ and did press-ups to prove…
Portrait of the week: Lockdown eases, debt rises and three killed in Reading
Home Pubs in England would be allowed to reopen for table service from 4 July, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister,…
Portrait of the week: Statues, steroids and support bubbles
Home Britain went into a frenzy of iconoclasm. The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was hidden by the…
Portrait of the week: Schools stay shut, Colston tumbles and bell tolls for Japan’s bike bells
Home The government lurched uncertainly in dealing with coronavirus. Not all years in primary schools would after all return before…
Portrait of the week: MPs return, dentists reopen and racing resumes
Home Primary schools were allowed to reopen but many did not want to. MPs voted to return to their physical…
Portrait of the week: Cummings under fire, protests in Hong Kong and a big cat in East Finchley
Home Open-air markets and car showrooms will be allowed to open from 1 June and other ‘non-essential’ shops from 15…
Portrait of the week: Unemployment up, bathers banned and Corbyn’s brother arrested
Home The United Kingdom seemed reluctant to come out of its lockdown. ‘We are likely to face a severe recession,…
Portrait of the week: Europe’s lockdowns ease, England stays alert and Broadway stays shut
Home The government changed its slogan from ‘Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’ to ‘Stay alert, control the virus,…
Portrait of the week: Neil Ferguson quits, Rory Stewart drops out and Boris names his baby
Home The government put its mind to the puzzle of how to get people back to work. Draft advice was…
Portrait of the week: Boris’s son is born, Commons sits apart and Belgians told to eat more potatoes
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, returned to work at Downing Street after recovering from his Covid-19 sickness. Speaking outside…
