Portrait of the week: Anderson’s outburst and Biden’s ceasefire prediction

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Lee Anderson, a former Conservative party deputy chairman, had the whip withdrawn after responding to an article by Suella Braverman that said: ‘The Islamists, the extremists and the anti-Semites are in charge now.’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’. Khan, the Mayor of London, accused the Conservatives of ‘a strategy to weaponise anti-Muslim prejudice’.

The row followed remarks by Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, during a debate on a Scottish National party motion about a ceasefire in Gaza, after he allowed a Labour amendment to be considered first, in defiance of precedent. When the amendment was passed (after the government abstained), the SNP was left with no vote on its motion. The party withdrew support from the Speaker and more than 80 MPs signed a motion of no confidence in him. The Speaker, who apologised emotionally, had earlier seen Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, privately. The next day the Speaker said: ‘I never ever want to go through a situation where I pick up a phone to find another friend, whatever side, has been murdered by terrorists. I also don’t want an attack on this House.’ The Prime Minister commented: ‘We should never let extremists intimidate us into changing the way in which parliament works.’ The classification of the film Mary Poppins was changed from U to PG because the eccentric character Admiral Boom twice uses the word Hottentot.

The Court of Appeal ruled that removing Shamima Begum’s British citizenship was not unlawful.