Portrait of the week

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said: ‘I want to make a wholehearted and unequivocal apology’ for a ‘decades-long moral failure at the heart of our national life’, as described in the report by Sir Brian Langstaff from the Infected Blood Inquiry, which found that successive governments and the NHS had let patients catch HIV and hepatitis. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, apologised too. So far more than 3,000 have died, of the 30,000 infected with HIV or hepatitis C from blood products or transfusions between 1970 and the early 1990s. Interim compensation of £210,000 will be paid to some within 90 days. BT postponed until January 2027 a deadline for forcing customers to switch from copper-based landlines to internet-based services.

Home The parliamentary Labour party shook itself uneasily after Natalie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, crossed the floor of the Commons and joined it, because she found the Conservatives too left wing. Monty Panesar, the former England cricketer, left George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain a week after being announced as a parliamentary candidate. Some Liberal Democrat party members complained to the Equality and Human Rights Commission about the deselection as a candidate for Sutton and Cheam of David Campanale, an Anglican. The Commons voted by 170 to 169 for MPs arrested for serious sexual or violent offences to be banned from attending parliament. The government bruited plans to stop sex education for under-nines and restrict teaching about gender.

Home The local elections proved dreadful for the Conservatives but not quite perfect for Labour. The Conservatives lost 474 of the council wards in contention, ending up with 515; Labour gained an extra 186 to reach 1,158. Independents and others, some standing on the issue of Gaza, increased their councillors by 93 to 228, and took away Labour votes. George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain got four seats. Reform won only two seats but took votes from the Tories; it almost came second in Blackpool South, where there was a by-election which Labour won with 10,825 votes to the Tories’ 3,218. Ben Houchen (Lord Houchen of High Leven) won a third term as Mayor of the Tees Valley as a Conservative; Sadiq Khan for Labour convincingly won a third term as Mayor of London.

Home Humza Yousaf resigned as the First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National party, posts he had held since the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon last year. He had precipitated confidence votes by terminating an arrangement with the seven Scottish Green MSPs. Royal Mail stopped imposing £5 penalties on letters with stamps deemed to be counterfeit after suspicions that China had produced many. Nigel Railton, the former chief executive of the Lottery operator Camelot, was appointed interim chairman of the Post Office. The Abu Dhabi-backed investment fund RedBird IMI abandoned its attempt to buy the Telegraph and The Spectator, which will now be up for sale. The King resumed public engagements by visiting a cancer centre with the Queen.

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said that within 12 weeks asylum-seekers could be flown to Rwanda. This followed the passing of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill. Five out of 110 people in a small inflatable boat died near the French coast. A BBC correspondent had watched French police trying to stop migrants boarding the inflatable boat at Wimereux, but once they were aboard, police made no attempt to stop them. After refusing to be rescued, 58 people remained on the small boat and continued their journey to Britain, escorted by a French Navy ship. Some 200 migrants in all landed in Dover that day. Train drivers for different companies decided to go on strike on different days between 7 and 9 May.

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said that British fighter jets had shot down ‘a number of drones’ fired at Israel from Iran. Additional RAF jets were deployed over Iraq and Syria, where Britain was already taking part in Operation Shader against the Islamic State group. Some people decided not to attend the annual Downing Street Eid party in protest at the government’s support for Israel; the Prime Minister was not there because he was making a statement to the House on Iran’s attack. A Muslim pupil at the Michaela School in Wembley, whose head teacher is Katharine Birbalsingh, failed at the High Court in challenging its ban on prayer rituals.

Home The review by Dr Hilary Cass of gender-identity services for people under 18 called for an end to prescribing powerful hormone drugs; warned that children who change gender may regret it; and found that many had experienced trauma, neglect and abuse. More than 150,000 patients had to wait more than 24 hours in A&E before getting a hospital bed last year, a tenfold increase on 2019. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, suggested that Labour could plug the gap in its spending commitments by getting more taxes sooner from non-doms. Five Bulgarians admitted in court to stealing more than £50 million in fraudulent claims for Universal Credit. Britain held talks with the European Commission on making Gibraltar part of the Schengen area.

Home The Hate Crime and Public Order Act came into effect in Scotland, making it a crime to communicate or behave in a manner ‘that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive’, with the intention of stirring up hatred based on age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. The Scottish government offered online training to 500 Police Scotland ‘Hate Crime Champions’. The author J.K. Rowling named ten people who call themselves women that she called men. Police Scotland said complaints had been received about her, but that but no action would be taken. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said: ‘We should not be criminalising people saying common sense things about biological sex.

Home Oliver Dowden, the Deputy Prime Minister, told parliament that China was behind a cyber attack on the Electoral Commission in August 2021, getting access to 40 million voters’ details. Three MPs, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Stewart McDonald and Tim Loughton, said they had been hacked and harassed by China. The government sanctioned two individuals and a company. A Chinese battery manufacturer, EVE Energy, had been in talks about building a gigafactory near Coventry airport. Scott Benton MP, from whom the Conservative whip had been withdrawn, successfully applied to be Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead in place of Chris Pincher, thereby provoking a by-election in Blackpool South.

Home Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said that if Labour were elected it would aim to borrow only for investment. Annual inflation fell to 3.4 per cent in February, from 4 per cent in January. Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, said that only a ‘small minority of MPs’ were talking about getting rid of Rishi Sunak as party leader and replacing him with Penny Mordaunt. Mr Sunak rushed to Coventry to announce a scheme to help apprentices. Barack Obama, the former US president, called at 10 Downing Street. Vaughan Gething became the First Minister of Wales; his father was born in Glamorgan and his mother in Zambia, and he said: ‘I have the honour of becoming the first black leader in any European country.

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said that Britain needed to build new gas-fired power stations to ensure energy security. GDP grew by 0.2 per cent in January. The number of people of working age classed as economically inactive rose to 9.25 million, compared with 8.55 million in February 2020, according to the Office for National Statistics. Among those aged 16 to 34, economic inactivity was rising; among those aged 35 to 64 it had fallen. Long-term sickness accounted for 2.7 million people not in work, 600,000 more than four years ago. The National Health Service employed more than two million for the first time, more than a third of public-sector workers.

Home In the Budget, Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, spoke of ‘long-term growth’. He cut National Insurance by 2p in the pound, saving the average worker £450 a year but pensioners nothing. A new ‘British Isa’ would allow an extra £5,000 a year tax-free investment. Tax arrangements for non-doms would be changed. The 28 per cent capital gains tax on property would go down to 24 per cent. Alcohol and fuel duty were frozen for a year; vaping would attract duty. He said the UK was on track to become the world’s next Silicon Valley and second only to Hollywood for film. The NHS would become ‘digitally integrated’ and drones become police first-responders. He announced devolved powers for Surrey and remarked on Sir Keir Starmer’s weight.

Home Lee Anderson, a former Conservative party deputy chairman, had the whip withdrawn after responding to an article by Suella Braverman that said: ‘The Islamists, the extremists and the anti-Semites are in charge now.’ He said: ‘I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of [Sadiq] Khan and they’ve got control of London, and they’ve got control of [Keir] Starmer as well.’ He later added: ‘They are laughing at our police. This stems with Khan, he’s actually given our capital city away to his mates.’ Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said the comments were ‘not acceptable. They were wrong’.

Home Labour called for an ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ in Gaza for the first time since the attack by Hamas in October. Earlier, at a Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow, Sir Keir Starmer said that a ‘ceasefire that lasts’ must ‘happen now’. The Prince of Wales called for an end to the fighting and the release of hostages, saying that ‘too many have been killed’. The ‘very small recession’ may already be over amid ‘distinct signs of an upturn’, Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, told a Commons committee. Provisional figures for the last quarter of 2023 had shown a 0.3 per cent fall in GDP, following a 0.1 per cent fall in the quarter before.

Home The King announced that he had cancer, which was discovered during his treatment for non-malignant prostate trouble. He would continue with state duties, including weekly audiences for the Prime Minister, while receiving out-patient treatment. Public engagements, of which he performed 425 last year, would be kept by the Queen and the Prince of Wales. The Duke of Sussex, his younger son, flew from California to see him. Michelle O’Neill, the Deputy Leader of Sinn Féin, became the First Minister of Northern Ireland as the Northern Ireland Assembly met for the first time in two years since the Democratic Unionists boycotted it over post-Brexit trade rules. The DUP nominated, as Deputy First Minister, Emma Little-Pengelly.

Home Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, the Foreign Secretary, set off on his fourth visit to the Middle East after saying: ‘We – with allies – will look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state, including at the United Nations.’ The Democratic Unionist party agreed to return to the power-sharing government in Northern Ireland, in return for a change in the law surrounding the Windsor Framework post-Brexit agreement with the European Union. Separately, from the end of January veterinary certificates were legally required for fresh food and plant imports from the EU to England. The population of the United Kingdom would reach 70 million by 2026, the Office for National Statistics forecast, and by 2036 would reach 73.7 million, after 7.

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, told the House of Commons that, in taking part in a second American air attack on Houthi positions near Sanaa, Britain had ‘acted in line with international law, in self defence, and in response to an immediate threat’. This time the leader of the opposition had not been informed before the attack. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said: ‘We back this targeted action.’ Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, the Foreign Secretary, set off to visit the Middle East. The Commons Procedure Committee decided to recommend that the Foreign Secretary should in general answer questions in the Commons by being summoned to the Bar of the House.

Home Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, the Foreign Secretary, said that the ‘red lights on the global dashboard are very much flashing’. He was speaking after Britain joined American air strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen. The Houthis, backed by Iran and allied with Hamas in Gaza, had been attacking merchant ships in the Red Sea. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, told the Commons it was ‘a necessary and a proportionate response to a direct threat to UK vessels’. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, supported Britain’s action, but said that future military interventions – especially sustained ones – should be brought before parliament.

Home Although it had long been known that between 1999 and 2015 more than 700 sub-postmasters were convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud (based on the faulty Horizon computer accounting system software), the government suddenly proposed to do something about it because of a public outcry following an ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office. The Metropolitan Police was investigating the Post Office over fraud possibly arising from money being ‘recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions’. Paula Vennells, who held high office in the Post Office from 2007 to 2019, said she was handing back her CBE ‘with immediate effect’, although it is the King’s role to annul it; more than a million people had signed a petition calling for its revocation.