Portrait of the week | 7 March 2013

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George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer failed to dissuade EU finance minsters in Brussels from endorsing a plan to cap bankers’ pay bonuses. City banks contemplated taking the EU to court over it. HSBC’s annual profits fell by 6 per cent to £14 billion, including a loss of £700 million made in Britain. The Royal Bank of Scotland, 81 per cent of which is owned by the government, made its fifth annual loss in a row, of £5.17 billion. Sir Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, suggested it should be split up and sold. Lloyds Banking Group, 40 per cent of which is owned by the government, reduced its losses to £570 million, from £3.5 billion the year before. Banks reduced their lending by £2.4 billion in the last quarter of 2012, despite the Funding for Lending Scheme operated by the Bank of England. Rolls-Royce made a profit of £1.4