Portrait of the Week - 5 October 2017

Home

Theresa May, the Prime Minister, told her audience at the Conservative party conference that she wanted to continue, like them, to ‘do our duty by Britain’. She said the government planned to make it easier for local authorities to build council houses. On the eve of the conference, Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, in an interview with the Sun sketched out four ‘red lines’ that he said should apply to Brexit. These included a transition period that must not last ‘a second more’ than two years. His stipulations went beyond anything agreed by the government, but Mrs May sidestepped questions about whether he was ‘unsackable’. Later she said: ‘I think leadership is about ensuring you have a team of people who aren’t yes-men.’ Mr Johnson received a standing ovation for a conference speech in which he said, with reference to the British public: ‘Let that lion roar!’ Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said the party ‘needs to get over its current nervous breakdown and man up a little bit’.