Portrait of the week

Portrait of the week: Christmas is on, Trump is off and Piglet stars on a 50p piece

28 November 2020 9:00 am

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

21 November 2020 9:00 am

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

14 November 2020 9:00 am

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

7 November 2020 9:00 am

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

31 October 2020 9:00 am

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

24 October 2020 9:00 am

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

17 October 2020 9:00 am

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

10 October 2020 9:00 am

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

3 October 2020 9:00 am

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

26 September 2020 9:00 am

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

19 September 2020 9:00 am

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

12 September 2020 9:00 am

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

5 September 2020 9:00 am

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

29 August 2020 9:00 am

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

22 August 2020 9:00 am

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

15 August 2020 9:00 am

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

8 August 2020 9:00 am

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

1 August 2020 9:00 am

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

25 July 2020 9:00 am

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

18 July 2020 9:00 am

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

11 July 2020 9:00 am

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

4 July 2020 9:00 am

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

27 June 2020 9:00 am

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

20 June 2020 9:00 am

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

13 June 2020 9:00 am

Home The government lurched uncertainly in dealing with coronavirus. Not all years in primary schools would after all return before…