Portrait of the week: Harry’s confessions, house prices fall and Cornish space launch fails

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Government ministers held short meetings with trade union representatives as strikes continued by ambulance drivers, teachers, bus drivers and driving test examiners. A bill was introduced to require some workers to provide a minimum level of service during strikes in the NHS, education, fire and rescue, border security, nuclear decommissioning and public transport. Evri, the courier formerly known as Hermes, said ‘Our service has not been as good as we would have liked’ as parcels were reported delayed or undelivered. James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, and Maros Sefcovic, a vice-president of the European Commission, held ‘cordial and constructive’ talks on Northern Ireland trade. Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen was suspended from the Commons for five days after breaching rules on paid lobbying, then lost the whip over comments about the Covid vaccine.

Even before its publication on 10 January, the Duke of Sussex’s memoir, Spare, provoked sharp intakes of breath when details were gleaned from a Spanish edition. He let it be known that he had killed 25 Taliban in Afghanistan. He explained how he first had sexual intercourse aged 17 in a field behind a pub. He admitted taking cocaine from the age of 17, cannabis at school and magic mushrooms, which made him feel that ‘only the truth existed’. He says that he and his brother begged their father not to marry Camilla Parker Bowles, now the Queen. He says that during an argument at Nottingham Cottage, in the grounds of Kensington Palace, about Meghan Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex, his brother ‘grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back.’

The government announced an ‘energy bills discount scheme’ for businesses from April, replacing the scheme that capped energy prices and had been expected to cost £18 billion over six months.