Portrait of the week | 20 March 2014

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In the Budget, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said that the economy was working but the job was far from done. He expected further falls in unemployment and wages rising faster than prices this year. The economy, he suggested, would return this year to its size in 2008. Before the Budget, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that as many as 1.9 million working families could receive a tax-free childcare allowance worth up to £2,000 per child. Mr Osborne had announced that the help-to-buy scheme for new homes would be extended until 2020. He also let it be known that a garden city of 15,000 dwellings would be built near Gravesend on the high-speed line from the Channel. The high-speed railway from London ought to reach Crewe by 2027 (instead of Birmingham by 2026), according to a report by Sir David Higgins, the new chairman of HS2. But Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, conceded that a £700 million link from Euston to St Pancras would not be built, though the Euston arch or propylaeum would be rebuilt.