Portrait of the week: A concrete crisis, Labour reshuffle and Gabon coup

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More than 100 schools were told to close buildings before the new term because they contained the wrong kind of concrete. The Health and Safety Executive said that reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) ‘is liable to collapse with little or no notice’. In total, 156 schools are affected, of which 104 require urgent attention and 52 have already received repair works. But in Scotland, where 35 council-run schools had been found to contain Raac, none had to close. In July, NHS Scotland had also identified 254 buildings that ‘have two or more characteristics which are consistent with the presence of Raac’, vulnerable to ‘catastrophic failure without warning’, but a Scottish government spokesperson said there was ‘no evidence to suggest that these buildings are not safe’. Laughing gas is to be categorised as a Class C drug by the end of the year, the government said, its possession punishable by two years’ jail.