Portrait of the week | 4 June 2011

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Jawad Iqbal

Blue Origin’s all-female space flight was a step backwards for feminism

The Court of Appeal ruled that Sharon Shoesmith had been sacked unfairly in 2008 as head of children’s services in Haringey after the death of baby Peter; asked if she blamed herself for the child’s death, she said: ‘I am not into the blame game. I don’t do blame.’ Southern Cross, Britain’s biggest care home company, caring for 30,000 people, agreed with its landlords to defer 30 per cent of its rent for four months. Four people were arrested after a Panorama programme about abuse of patients with learning difficulties and autism at a residential hospital in Bristol. In the first quarter of the year 300 cases of measles were recorded, four times last year’s incidence. The Health and Safety Executive served the animal health laboratory at Pirbright, Surrey, with two ‘improvement notices’ after two incidents, in one of which a flask containing foot-and-mouth virus cracked and leaked, and in the other liquid leaked from cows being incinerated.

Lord Taylor of Warwick, until recently a member of the Conservative party, was jailed for 12 months for falsely claiming £11,277 in parliamentary expenses. The Electoral Commission is to look into the election expenses of Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem Energy Secretary, following a complaint. Alex Fergusson, the former presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament, is to give his £20,000 pension to charity while he continues to draw a salary as an MSP. Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition, married Justine Thornton, the mother of his two children, on a windy day at Langar in Nottinghamshire. About 200 people gathered to see competitors pursue a Double Gloucester cheese 650ft down the 1:2 slope of Coopers Hill, Gloucestershire.

For the first time, applications to universities have risen above 700,000, and more than 200,000 are expected to be left without places by August.