Portrait of the week | 21 February 2019

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Seven MPs resigned from the Labour party and sat in the Commons (next to the DUP) as the Independent Group, or Tig. They were Luciana Berger, Ann Coffey, Mike Gapes, Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith and Chuka Umunna. The next day they were joined by Joan Ryan and the following one by three Tories, Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen. The Labour eight said they objected to anti-Semitism in the party, the security risk should Jeremy Corbyn become prime minister and Labour’s lukewarm attitude to a second referendum. Derek Hatton, who had been the deputy leader of the Militant-controlled council which set an illegal budget in Liverpool, was readmitted to the Labour party after 34 years. Theresa May, the Prime Minister, returned to Brussels for talks on Brexit with Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission. Lady Falkender, who as Marcia Williams acted as private and political secretary to Harold Wilson and drew up on her notepaper the ‘lavender list’ of honours at his resignation in 1976, died aged 86.