Portrait of the week

Home James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, said that all 92,000 ‘legacy’ applications for asylum (made before 28 June 2022) had been processed, but 4,500 were reclassified as ‘complex’ and 17,000 were withdrawn. Of 112,138 applications subject to an initial decision in 2023, 67 per cent were granted. The number of migrants to cross the Channel in small boats came to 29,437 in 2023, 36 per cent fewer than the 45,774 in 2022. Flooding in a tunnel under the Thames led to cancellation for a day of all Eurostar trains across the Channel. Doctors below the rank of consultant began a six-day strike. A surge in scabies was reported amid a shortage of the lotion used to treat it.

Home James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, told the Commons that to gain a work visa, migrants must in future secure a salary of at least £38,700 instead of the present £26,200. The government also said it would stop health and care workers and students bringing family dependants to Britain. He said this would have disqualified 300,000 who came to Britain last year. Mr Cleverly then flew off to Rwanda and signed a treaty intended to ensure that no one relocated there would risk being returned to a country threatening their life or freedom. Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour party, said in an article in the Sunday Telegraph: ‘Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism.

Home Net migration reached a record 745,000 last year, the Office for National Statistics said, 139,000 higher than the 606,000 it had previously given. Robert Jenrick, the minister for immigration, was reported to be ‘pressuring’ No. 10 with ideas for cutting immigration, such as by making a minimum salary of £35,000 a requirement for a work visa. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, had agreed with Suella Braverman, when she was home secretary, to raise the salary requirement to £40,000, according to a copy of their agreement seen by the Telegraph. Eight small boats carried 364 migrants to England on 26 November. Caolan Gormley, 26, from Co.

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister appointed David Cameron, prime minister 2010-16, as Foreign Secretary and sent him to the Lords for the purpose, though there was a delay before the peerage was gazetted. The Speaker of the Commons asked the government how the Foreign Office would be held ‘properly accountable to this House’. There were rumblings in Brexitward quarters. Richard Tice, the leader of the Reform party, said: ‘The champagne will be flowing in the Reform party headquarters tonight.’ Eluned Morgan, Lady Morgan of Ely, a Labour minister in the Welsh Senedd, apologised for saying: ‘What next? Thatcher’s hearse arriving at No. 10?

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said of pro-Palestinian demonstrations: ‘To plan protests on Armistice Day is provocative and disrespectful, and there is a clear and present risk that the Cenotaph and other war memorials could be desecrated.’ The Metropolitan Police urged organisers of a pro-Palestinian march on 11 November to postpone it, but they refused. The Prime Minister then said he would hold the Metropolitan Police Commissioner ‘accountable’ for his decision to greenlight the ‘disrespectful’ demonstration. Imran Hussain MP left the Labour front bench over Sir Keir Starmer’s opposition to a ceasefire in Gaza, and Afrasiab Anwar, the leader of Burnley council, and ten councillors left the Labour party.

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, chaired a Cobra emergency committee meeting on the effects in Britain of Israel’s war against Hamas: his spokesman described videos and pictures on social media at the weekend as ‘extremely concerning’. A large pro-Palestine demonstration had again been held in London. Andy McDonald MP had the Labour whip suspended after using the phrase ‘between the river to the sea’ during the march. Paul Bristow MP was sacked as a Conservative parliamentary private secretary for calling for a ceasefire. A tornado tore the roof off a house in Littlehampton, West Sussex. Plans to close ticket offices at railway stations were cancelled. The government granted 27 licences for oil and gas exploration and development in the North Sea.

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, spoke on the telephone with the rulers of Qatar and Saudi Arabia about Israel’s war against Hamas. The annual rate of inflation remained at 6.7 per cent. Wages in the period of June to August rose at an annual rate of 7.8 per cent. The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority, which had blocked a previous bid, said its concerns had been addressed over a $69 billion takeover by Microsoft of Activision Blizzard; Microsoft will now control games such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush. A new set of coins reflecting the King’s interest in nature is being minted, with a dormouse on the 1p, a capercaillie on the 10p and bees on the £1.

Home The Conservatives argued about tax and HS2 at their conference in the former Manchester Central railway station. At the end, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, announced cancellation of the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2. He promised £36 billion for a ‘Network North’ and for transport outside London (where there would be a ‘Euston development zone’). He proposed raising the legal age for smoking by one year every year. He declared his values as ‘service, family, work’ and said: ‘A man is a man and a woman is a woman.’ He wore a bracelet saying ‘Dada’. In her own speech, Akshata Murty, his wife, said ‘aspiration’ summed him up. Lightning struck a food waste recycling tank at Cassington, Oxfordshire, causing a huge explosion.

Home Dozens of armed police in London laid down their guns after a Metropolitan Police officer was charged with the murder of Chris Kaba, 24, shot in Streatham Hill last year. The army stood by, but enough policemen returned to armed duties to make Military Aid to the Civil Authorities unnecessary. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, backed some sort of review of armed policing guidelines ordered by Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, which Downing Street said was expected to conclude by the end of the year.

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, proposed reaching net zero in 2050 ‘in a better, more proportionate way’ such as by delaying a ban on the sales of new petrol and diesel cars and delaying the phasing out of gas boilers. Ford the car makers told him it would undermine the three things it needed from the government: ‘ambition, commitment and consistency’. Inflation decreased from 6.8 per cent annually in July to 6.7 per cent in August despite a rise in oil prices. Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, appointed commissioners to run Birmingham, which had run out of money. A man was killed by two dogs, said to be Bully XLs, in Staffordshire. Mr Sunak said he would ban the breed by the end of the year under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.

Home Average wages (including bonuses) in the three months to July were 8.5 per cent higher than a year earlier. This should mean that state pensions rise by 8.5 per cent from April 2024, if the government does not claw back anything; the predicted rise would bring into the tax-paying bracket 650,000 more pensioners, a total of 9.15 million. GDP fell by 0.5 per cent in July. Wilko shops began closing as attempts to rescue the chain failed; Poundland offered to take on the leases of up to 71 shops. The cost of a first-class stamp is to rise from £1.10 to £1.25; before April this year it was only 95p. Bernard Looney resigned as chief executive of BP over a matter of personal relationships. A government auction for contracts for new offshore wind farms brought not a single bid.

Home More than 100 schools were told to close buildings before the new term because they contained the wrong kind of concrete. The Health and Safety Executive said that reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) ‘is liable to collapse with little or no notice’. In total, 156 schools are affected, of which 104 require urgent attention and 52 have already received repair works. But in Scotland, where 35 council-run schools had been found to contain Raac, none had to close.

Home Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, told police that they must investigate every theft and follow all reasonable leads to catch criminals; the Police Federation of England and Wales said forces were already ‘stretched beyond human limits’. Home Office figures showed that only 3.9 per cent of residential burglaries resulted in someone being charged, and for thefts from the person it was 0.9 per cent. Hartwig Fischer resigned as the director of the British Museum and Jonathan Williams stepped aside as his deputy when it became clear that information about 1,500 or so missing objects had been wrongly dismissed; police continued investigations.

Home 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’.

Home The annual rate of inflation fell to 6.8 per cent in July, from 7.9 per cent in June. Wages in the period of April to June were 7.8 per cent higher than a year earlier, according to the Office for National Statistics. GDP grew by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter, after growth of 0.1 per cent in the first quarter. The number of people inactive because of long-term sickness rose to more than 2.5 million, 400,000 more than at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Unemployment rose from 3.9 per cent to 4.2 per cent. Food prices were 12.7 per cent higher in the four weeks to 6 August than a year earlier, according to Kantar, a research company. Wilko, the homeware chain with 400 outlets, was for sale after going into administration.

Home The first of about 500 asylum seekers were taken to live on the Bibby Stockholm barge on the Isle of Portland, north of the prison and linked to the mainland by one road. The arrival of 339 migrants by small boat across the Channel at the weekend brought the year’s total to 15,071. The government declared it would increase enforcement action against lawyers who ‘coach illegal migrants to lie’ in making claims. Fines were to be tripled for employers and landlords who allow illegal migrants to work for them (up to £45,000 per illegal worker for a first breach) or rent their properties, the Home Secretary announced. The 18th-century Crooked House pub, near Dudley, was gutted by fire a fortnight after being sold, and the next day reduced to rubble by a mechanical digger.