Portrait of the week | 7 February 2013

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The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was given its second reading in the Commons by 400 votes to 175. Of Conservative MPs, 127 voted for it, and 136 against. David Cameron, who did not attend the debate, called the result ‘an important step forward’. The bill does not apply to Scotland, which has its own plans, or to Northern Ireland, which does not. A provision of the bill prohibits the Church of England and the Church in Wales from conducting same-sex weddings, which are against canon law (itself part of English law). On the day of the confirmation of his election as Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Justin Welby said: ‘I support the Church of England’s position on this.’ Europol said that a Champions League match played in England was among 380 European matches suspected of having been fixed; a Danish paper said it was Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Debrecen, the Hungarian team, in 2009.