Portrait of the week | 24 May 2018

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Marks & Spencer announced plans to close 100 of its 1,035 shops by 2022, hoping to move a third of its sales online; the costs of the plans brought its annual profits down by almost two-thirds, to £66.8 million. Govia Thameslink Railway, which runs Great Northern, Thameslink and Southern, cancelled 160 trains, 7 per cent of the total, the day after it changed all its timetables. Northern trains were also affected. Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, announced that, as expected, his department would run the East Coast Main Line until 2020, after the franchise holders, Stagecoach and Virgin, pulled out of their agreement. BP suspended work on a well in the Rhum field in the North Sea, co-owned by a subsidiary of the Iranian state oil company until the effect of United States sanctions was established. Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, said he would ban the sale of smoky wood-burning stoves. Meghan Markle married Prince Harry and became the Duchess of Sussex when he was created Duke, and Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel (a place in Co. Down) to boot. An estimated 100,000 flocked to Windsor to watch the newly-weds in an open landau driven in May sunshine from St George’s Chapel down the High Street and back up the Long Walk to the Castle. Tens of millions had watched the wedding on television, with the bride’s mother sitting quietly in a stall, the sermon by the Most Revd Michael Curry (the primate of the Episcopal Church in the United States) going on in a lively manner for 14 minutes, the Kingdom Choir singing ‘Stand by Me’ and the long veil being quite well marshalled by seven-year-old twins Brian and John Mulroney, followed by a clutch of bridesmaids.