The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 16 June 2012

issue 16 June 2012

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The Church of England opposed government plans for gay marriage, noting that if they were brought into law, the European Court of Human Rights would probably oblige churches to perform such marriages. Michael Gove, the education secretary, said he expected children of five to recite poetry. Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, in evidence to the Leveson inquiry, flatly contradicted evidence that Rupert Murdoch had given about their dealings. Edinburgh saw 39 confirmed and 49 suspected cases of legionnaires’ disease, which killed one man. David Cameron and his wife, it was discovered, accidentally left their eight-year-old daughter behind in a pub one Sunday lunchtime this year. There was widespread flooding in England and Wales. Thames Water lifted its hosepipe ban.

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The Queen said that it had been a ‘humbling experience’ to attend the events of her Diamond Jubilee, which included a pageant of 1,000 boats on the Thames in the rain, witnessed by more than a million, a concert outside Buckingham Palace and a service in St Paul’s.

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