Portrait of the week | 20 April 2017

Home

Theresa May, the Prime Minister, having repeatedly said that there would be no election until 2020, surprised the nation by suddenly standing at a lectern in Downing Street, while the wind ruffled her hair, and saying that she sought a general election on 8 June. ‘Britain is leaving the EU and there can be no turning back,’ she said. ‘The country is coming together but Westminster is not.’ She said later that she had taken the decision after a walking holiday in Wales, and had spoken to the Queen on Easter Monday. The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, passed in 2011, required a two-thirds majority of all MPs (or a motion of no confidence) to allow an election to be called, but Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour party, welcomed an election, saying it was a ‘chance to vote for a government that will put the interests of the majority first’.