Portrait of the week | 4 May 2017

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Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, told Theresa May after dinner with her on 26 April, ‘I’m leaving Downing Street ten times more sceptical than I was before,’ according to an account in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. At the dinner, also attended by Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, and David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, Mrs May was said to have declared that Britain was not legally obliged to pay the EU ‘a penny’; Mr Juncker said ‘the EU is not a golf club’ with a subscription that could be cancelled at any time. ‘Let us make Brexit a success,’ May is said to have remarked, to which Mr Juncker replied: ‘Brexit cannot be a success.’ The next day, Mr Juncker got up early to ring Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and tell her that Mrs May was ‘deluded’ and ‘living in another galaxy’. Mrs May described the account as ‘Brussels gossip’.