The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 18 June 2015

issue 20 June 2015

Home

Talha Asmal, aged 17, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, died in a suicide bomb attack on forces near an oil refinery near Baiji in Iraq, having assumed the name Abu Yusuf al-Britani. A man from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, Thomas Evans, 25, who had changed his name to Abdul Hakim, was killed in Kenya while fighting for al-Shabab. Three sisters from Bradford were thought to have travelled to Syria with their nine children after going on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Britain had had to move intelligence agents, the Sunday Times reported, because Russia and China had deciphered documents made public by Edward Snowden, the CIA employee who has taken refuge in Russia. Payments expected by customers of the RBS group of banks failed to enter accounts overnight. A lottery prize of £93,388,943 was claimed. Camelot, the lottery operator, increased the number of balls in the draw from 49 to 59.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, headed off rebellion over the EU referendum by agreeing not to hold it on the same day as other elections on 5 May 2016 and by getting David Lidington, the Europe minister, to announce that, in the four weeks before the vote, the government ‘will not undertake a range of activity that most will regard as the province of the campaign’.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in