Portrait of the week | 5 March 2011

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David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said, with regard to the crisis in Libya, ‘It is right for us to look at plans for a no-fly zone.’ Earlier, during his tour of the Middle East, he had apologised for the slow evacuation of British citizens from Libya. Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, on being asked if he was in charge during Mr Cameron’s absence, said, ‘Yeah, I suppose I am. I forgot about that.’ He hurried back from a family skiing holiday. The British embassy in Tripoli was abandoned. HMS Cumberland, a British frigate on its way back to Britain to be scrapped, rescued 207 people from Tripoli and returned for more. RAF Hercules aircraft made repeated landings in the desert to rescued British and other foreign workers, with the help of special forces. Details were made known of more than 10,000 members of the Armed Forces, some on service in Afghanistan, who are to lose their jobs.