Portrait of the week
22 October 2011
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… Read more
15 October 2011
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… Read more
8 October 2011
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… Read more
1 October 2011
Home Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour party, asked its conference: ‘Are you on the side of the wealth creators or the asset strippers?’ He criticised ‘predatory’ companies, and… Read more
24 September 2011
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… Read more
17 September 2011
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… Read more
10 September 2011
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… Read more
3 September 2011
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… Read more
27 August 2011
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… Read more
20 August 2011
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… Read more
13 August 2011
HOME Parliament was recalled as rioting spread across London and to other cities. It began in Tottenham on Saturday night, two days after a black man, Mark Duggan, was… Read more
6 August 2011
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… Read more
30 July 2011
Home Gross Domestic Product grew by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2011, after a quarter in which growth was 0.5 per cent, according to the Office for… Read more
23 July 2011
This week’s Portrait of the week Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, cut short a trade mission to South Africa, returning to give a statement on the phone hacking scandal… Read more
16 July 2011
Home The newspaper the News of the World was closed by Rupert Murdoch after 168 years as a response to revelations of phone hacking — breaking into telephone voicemail messages.… Read more
9 July 2011
Home A private investigator working for the News of the World allegedly hacked into the voicemail of the murdered girl Milly Dowler while she was missing, deleting messages when the… Read more
2 July 2011
Home Teachers went on strike for a day. The National Association of Head Teachers strongly advised heads not to allow parent volunteers to keep schools open. Public-sector workers chose the… Read more
25 June 2011
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, reversed the suggestion by Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, that prisoners who had pleaded guilty at an early stage should have their sentences halved.… Read more
18 June 2011
Home The government accepted the recommendations of the NHS Future Forum, which had spent two months reviewing the government’s plans for reforming the National Health Service. The Health Secretary is… Read more
11 June 2011
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, gave five ‘guarantees’ about the National Health Service, including a pledge not to endanger universal coverage and to increase spending on the NHS. He… Read more
Latest blogs
- Lee Rigby named as victim of Woolwich attack Sebastian Payne
- The friendless Help-to-Buy scheme Isabel Hardman
- Nothing to do with Islam? Douglas Murray
- Why it’s not the 1990s all over again for the Tories James Forsyth
- You’re going to lose. It is only you against many. Alex Massie
- PM avoids knee-jerk response to Woolwich attack Isabel Hardman
- David Cameron’s statement on the Woolwich attack The Spectator
