The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Scottish drug deaths, more strikes and the Lucy Letby verdict

issue 26 August 2023

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The number of drug deaths in Scotland fell to 1,051 in 2022, the lowest since 2017, but still the worst record per head in Europe. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, who in March had pledged ‘to stop the boats once and for all’, said that ‘there is not one simple solution and it can’t be solved overnight’. On a sunny Monday, 661 migrants landed in Britain in 16 small boats; one man, on making landfall, made the Albanian eagle gesture popular among football supporters. England was defeated 1-0 by Spain in the final of the women’s football World Cup; the Spanish Prime Minister said that Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales kissing the forward Jenni Hermoso on the lips afterwards was an ‘unacceptable gesture’. Sir Michael Parkinson, the sports journalist and television interviewer, died aged 88.

Lucy Letby, a nurse, was given a life sentence without possibility of release on being found guilty after a ten-month trial of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six more at the Countess of Chester hospital.

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