Portrait of the week | 8 May 2010

The country voted in a general election and local elections. In the run-up to the polls, Mr Gordon Brown had comforted Tiari Sanchez, aged 14, who broke down in tears as she described to a rally of Citizens UK how her family had to eat lentils because their mother earned so little as a cleaner at the Treasury. Mr Brown said hers was an example of the importance of fighting for ‘fairness and dignity for all’. Mr David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party, wooed Ulster Unionists, then took to campaigning in the middle of the night, visiting firemen and fishermen. Mr Manish Sood, a Labour candidate, told his local paper: ‘I believe Gordon Brown has been the worst prime minister we have had in this country.’ The week had begun with Mrs Gillian Duffy declaring in the Mail on Sunday that she was not going to post her vote, which she had intended to cast for the Labour candidate at Rochdale.