Portrait of the week

Home The government was defeated by 149 votes — 391 to 242 — on the EU withdrawal agreement presented by Theresa May, the Prime Minister. In a croaking voice she announced a free vote on leaving without a deal. Mrs May had come back from Strasbourg with two documents: a ‘joint instrument’, or interpretive tool

Home Two 17-year-olds were stabbed to death in London and Manchester, bringing the number of teenagers killed in knife crime this year to ten. Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said that there was ‘no direct correlation between certain crimes and police numbers’. Next day, Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said: ‘There is some link

Home Seven MPs resigned from the Labour party and sat in the Commons (next to the DUP) as the Independent Group, or Tig. They were Luciana Berger, Ann Coffey, Mike Gapes, Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Angela Smith and Chuka Umunna. The next day they were joined by Joan Ryan and the following one by three

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, returned from a trip to Brussels and Dublin and hurried to the Commons to ask for more time to do something or other about the Irish backstop. The much-kicked Brexit can was expected to land in the parliamentary road again on 27 February, though the government envisaged no ‘meaningful

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, set off to seek a change to the Irish backstop of the EU withdrawal agreement after the Commons voted by 317 to 301 for a government-backed amendment by Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 committee, proposing unnamed ‘alternative arrangements’. Mrs May said there was ‘limited appetite

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, having survived a parliamentary vote of no confidence, came to the Commons with an amended plan for Brexit which would entail changing the Irish backstop agreement with the European Union. Otherwise Plan B looked very much like the Plan A that had been defeated by a majority of 230

Home Brexit threw politics into unpredictable chaos. The government was defeated by an unparalleled majority of 230 — 432 to 202 — on the withdrawal agreement it had negotiated with the EU. The result was greeted by cheers from demonstrators outside the House, both those in favour and those against Brexit. Labour tabled a motion

Home The number of would-be migrants known to have reached England in small boats from France in the last two months of 2018 reached 239, with 40 making the crossing on Christmas Day. Most said they were Iranian. Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, transferred two Border Force cutters to help the one patrolling the Channel.

January Four young men were stabbed to death in London as the New Year began. The Crown Prosecution Service was to review rape cases, after several prosecutions collapsed when evidence was not disclosed to the defence. Carillion went into liquidation. London Zoo delayed its annual stock take after a fire killed an aardvark called Misha.

Home Political hobbyists speculated on the future of Brexit if the government fell, if a new Conservative leader was chosen, if a general election was called or if a second referendum was held. Debates were tabled over five days, in prospect of a Commons vote on 11 December on the withdrawal agreement from the EU

Brexit Theresa May, the Prime Minister, seemed to succeed in uniting the country in opposition to the withdrawal agreement to which she and the leaders of the other 27 EU members had assented at a summit in Brussels. Sir Michael Fallon called it ‘the worst of all worlds’. The Prime Minister had ‘given up’, according

Home Five pizza-eating cabinet ministers — Andrea Leadsom, Penny Mordaunt, Liam Fox, Michael Gove and Chris Grayling — put it about that Theresa May, the Prime Minister, could be persuaded to amend the draft withdrawal agreement with the EU before she signs it at a summit this Sunday. But Mrs May said that she had

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, defended a 500-page technical draft of the agreement on withdrawal from the European Union. She met immediate opposition from the Democratic Unionists, from Jacob Rees-Mogg and from Boris Johnson. Mr Johnson’s brother Jo (a Remainer) had earlier resigned as a minister, calling Mrs May’s handling of Brexit a ‘failure

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, set off for St Symphorien Military Cemetery in Mons, from which she was to join President Emmanuel Macron to lay wreaths at Thiepval for the centenary of the Armistice. Jeff Fairburn resigned as chief executive of Persimmon, the housing company, after his £75 million bonus attracted public comment. Marks

Home Austerity was ‘finally coming to an end’, Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in the Budget. He was helped by what he did not call a magic money sapling, in the form of revised estimates of public borrowing in 2018, £11.6 billion lower than forecast. Debt as a share of GDP, from

Home Theresa May, the Prime Minister, found herself in another crisis over Brexit. Backbenchers whispered that 48 letters were being collected to present to the chairman of the 1922 Committee to trigger a vote of confidence. What annoyed some of her own MPs was a scheme (intended to make less likely the imposition of a

Home Brexit was in crisis as the European Council (of heads of state or government) met. Theresa May, the Prime Minister, told the House of Commons that it was time for ‘cool, calm heads to prevail’. These proved in short supply. Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Penny Mordaunt, Chris Grayling, Liz Truss and Geoffrey