Portrait of the week | 20 February 2014

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It would be ‘extremely difficult, if not impossible’ for an independent Scotland to join the European Union, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, said on British television. Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party, said that if an independent Scotland was not allowed to use the pound, it would cost the rest of the United Kingdom £500 million in transaction costs per year, and Scotland would refuse its share of the national debt. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, warned that uncertainty produced by a referendum on EU membership would mean that businesses held off from making investment. The Unite union called off a strike at the Faslane and Coulport naval bases in the Clyde. The introduction of a new NHS anonymised data-sharing scheme was delayed by six months. Students elected Edward Snowden, the fugitive leaker of American state secrets, as rector of Glasgow University.