Portrait of the week | 23 July 2011

This week’s Portrait of the week

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David Cameron, the Prime Minister, cut short a trade mission to South Africa, returning to give a statement on the phone hacking scandal to the Commons, which delayed its summer recess. Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive of News Corporation, appeared before a select committee of the Commons investigating the scandal, with his son James, the chief of News Corporation Europe and Asia. ‘I was absolutely shocked, appalled and ashamed when I heard about the Milly Dowler case two weeks ago,’ Mr Murdoch Senior told the committee, but the responsibility for what went on at the News of the World was that of ‘the people I trusted to run it and maybe the people they trusted’. Wendi Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s wife, exhibited admirably rapid reactions in leaping at a demonstrator who attempted to push a plate of foam into his face during the hearing. Rebekah Brooks, who had resigned as chief executive of News International on 15 July, appeared separately.