Portrait of the week: Delays in Dover, decline in house prices and Donald Trump in the dock

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Britain joined Australia, Japan and nine other countries in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the CPTPP. Kemi Badenoch, Business and Trade Secretary, said that projections of its contribution to the growth of the UK economy, of 0.08 per cent over a decade, didn’t tell the whole story. Teachers voted for more strikes; the Passport Office began five weeks of strikes. The Food Standards Agency investigated allegations that a meat supplier falsely labelled foreign pork as British and mixed rotting and fresh meat. In March, house prices were 3.1 per cent less than a year before, according to the Nationwide – the largest annual decline since July 2009. In March, the pound gained 3 per cent against the dollar. Lord Lawson of Blaby, editor of The Spectator 1966-70 and Chancellor of the Exchequer 1983-89, died aged 91.

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Ferry travellers to France had to wait for hours at Dover, some overnight; French passport checks meant every coach had to be emptied of passengers. At Heathrow, security workers in the Unite union went on strike for ten days. The RAF allowed all cadets to wear uniforms of either sex, and those transitioning are ‘permitted to use facilities such as toilets and ablutions’ of the gender of their choosing. Nicola Sturgeon, the previous first minister of Scotland, attributed speculation on social media about her private life to people who ‘want to pretend, and they want other people to believe, there is one hidden secret life’.

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, announced a grooming gangs taskforce and declared that ‘evil grooming gangs who target children and young women will be stamped out’ and ‘cannot hide behind cultural sensitivities as a way to evade justice’.