Portrait of the week | 13 November 2014

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The government, expecting a backbench rebellion over the European Arrest Warrant, did not present it for a separate vote in the Commons, which enraged backbenchers all the more. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, tabled a procedural motion, forcing David Cameron, the Prime Minister, to hurry from the Lord Mayor’s banquet in white tie to vote amid angry scenes. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, came back from Brussels claiming that Britain would now only have to pay half of a £1.7 billion bill that the European Union had presented; but critics said that he was merely counting a future rebate that Britain was owed in any case. A recording emerged of a telephone conversation in 1983 between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan after the United States had invaded Grenada, which he begins by saying: ‘If I were there, Margaret, I’d throw my hat in the door before I came in.’

Ed Miliband spent a week having his leadership of the Labour party questioned. A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times suggested only 34 per cent of people who voted Labour at the last general election believed Mr Miliband was up to the job of prime minister, compared with 51 per cent a month earlier. The Observer said that 20 shadow ministers were ready to call on him to resign. Chris Packham, the wildlife television presenter, complained of the treatment of invertebrates in the ‘bush-tucker’ trials in I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!

As a penalty for manipulating foreign exchange rates, the Financial Conduct Authority fined HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan Chase and Citibank £1.1 billion, while the US regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, fined the same banks more than £900 million. The Swiss regulator fined UBS £87 million, and Barclays continued negotiations.