Portrait of the Week – 8 September 2016

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David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, made his first statement to the Commons and said that if membership of a single market meant having to give up control of United Kingdom borders, ‘that makes it very improbable’. The official spokesman for Theresa May, the Prime Minister, who was away in China, disagreed, claiming that Mr Davis was merely ‘setting out his opinion’. ‘Saying something is probable or improbable,’ she said, ‘I don’t think is necessarily a policy.’ Speaking in China about freedom of movement after Brexit, Mrs May said: ‘I want a system where the government is able to decide who comes into the country — I think that’s what the British people want. A points-based system means that people come in automatically if they just meet the criteria.’ The RMT union held a two-day strike on the Southern railway network. The annual profits of Southern’s owners, Go-Ahead, rose by 26.8 per