Portrait of the week: Starmer’s stall, high treason and the horrors of Hamas

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At the Labour party conference, cheerful in the hall but overshadowed by the war in Israel, Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said that in government he would build 1.5 million homes and a host of ‘Labour new towns’. He wanted to spend £1.1 billion a year on higher overtime payments within NHS England to reduce waiting lists. A protestor poured glitter over him. Angela Rayner, the deputy leader, and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, also said Labour would ‘rebuild Britain’. ‘Rachel Reeves is a serious economist,’ said Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England. Labour took Rutherglen and Hamilton West in a by-election that the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, called a ‘seismic night in Scotland’. Labour polled 17,845, to the Scottish National Party’s 8,399; the Conservative candidate lost his deposit. Labour doubled its Scottish seats to two. The swing to Labour was 20.4 per cent; the turnout was 37.2