Portrait of the week

January The government introduced a Health Bill to give control of the NHS budget to GPs. Andy Coulson resigned as head of communications at Downing Street. Prisoners set Ford open prison on fire. Gerry Rafferty, the singer, died, aged 63. Nigel Pargetter fell to his death from the roof at Lower Loxley. A fox weighing

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said before an EU summit on the eurozone debt crisis that he would not agree to any treaty change ‘that fails to protect our interests’. Downing Street rejected suggestions by Iain Duncan Smith that a referendum on the EU would be made necessary by the changes proposed. Sir Mervyn

Home Public borrowing will exceed previous forecasts by £5 billion this year, £19 billion next year and £30 billion in 2013-14, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in an Autumn Statement delivered under dark clouds. The ratio of debt to GDP would rise to a peak of 78 per cent in 2014-15. He

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Getting debt under control is proving harder than anyone envisaged.’ In a speech to the Confederation of British Industry he blamed in part ‘paralysis in the eurozone’. His words came a week before the Chancellor was due to make his autumn statement, and the Office for Budget Responsibility

•Home The crisis in the eurozone was ‘an opportunity to begin to refashion the EU so it better serves this nation’s interests’, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said in his Mansion House speech. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a television interview: ‘There’s got to be more integration — the kind of

Home Theresa May, the Home Secretary, blamed Brodie Clark, the head of the UK Border and Immigration Agency’s ‘border force’, for ‘relaxation of border controls without ministerial sanction’. Mr Clark left the agency, declaring that what Mrs May had said in parliament was wrong. An online petition urging ministers to reduce immigration gained more than

• Home St Paul’s Cathedral decided not to take court action against anti-capitalist demonstrators who, since 15 October, had kept 200 tents pitched outside. The Corporation of London suspended its own legal action. The Rt Rev Graeme Knowles resigned as Dean of St Paul’s, a post he had held since 2007. His resignation followed that

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, insisted on being present, along with leaders of the 10 EU countries not part of the eurozone, at a summit on the crisis surrounding the currency bloc. At an earlier summit of leaders of all 27 EU countries, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France told Mr Cameron: ‘You say you

Home After the resignation of Liam Fox as Defence Secretary, a report by Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, found that there had been a ‘clear breach’ of the ministerial code in his working relationship with Adam Werritty, who had accompanied him on 18 foreign trips. Dr Fox, he said, had been warned about Mr

Home The Bank of England launched out on a further £75 billion worth of quantitative easing, but refused to buy government bonds maturing in 2017 because traders had driven up the price. Typical households will not return to the level of income they enjoyed in 2009 until 2015, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the Conservative party conference in Manchester that the Treasury would spend billions buying bonds from small and medium-sized businesses in an exercise called ‘credit easing’. He announced a freeze on council tax for a second year, saving householders an average of £72. He also remarked: ‘We’re

Home The International Monetary Fund reduced its growth forecast for Britain this year from 1.5 per cent to 1.1 per cent and for next year from 2.3 to 1.6 per cent. A debate rumbled on in government about whether to spend more money on public infrastructure works as dark financial clouds loomed. ‘What I will

Home The Independent Commission on Banking, headed by Sir John Vickers, recommended that there should be insulation of high street banking from investment banking. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, accepted the commission’s call for its recommendations to be introduced by 2019. The report received cross-party support, although it would cost banking £7 billion

Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a speech in the City: ‘We have all had to revise down our short-term expectations over recent weeks.’ Industrial production for the United Kingdom fell by 0.2 per cent in July. House prices, according to the Halifax, fell by 1.2 per cent from July to

Home In London more than 2,000 had so far been arrested in connection with the August riots, of whom 1,135 had been charged. Nationally, 70 per cent of those who appeared in court were remanded in custody for trial. In more than half of Britain’s postcode areas, the Royal Mail failed to meet its aim

HOME David Cameron, the Prime Minister, stood outside 10 Downing Street and commented on events in Libya. ‘This has not been our revolution,’ he said, ‘but we can be proud that we have played our part.’ He had broken off his holiday in Cornwall for a meeting of the National Security Council. He had only

Home Of the 1,179 people who had appeared in court on charges arising from the riots by 15 August, two thirds were remanded in custody. The number of arrests by then had reached 2,772. Seven were arrested in connection with the murder of three Asian men in Birmingham, knocked down by a car. Tariq Jahan,

This week’s Portrait of the week HOME William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said there was ‘not a remote possibility’ of using force against Syria, even with United Nations backing. The Commons defence committee said that cuts to the Armed Forces might prevent their doing whatever was needed after 2015. Mike Clasper, the chairman of HM