Portrait of the week | 12 March 2011

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Special forces accompanying British intelligence officers in a nocturnal visit by helicopter to territory near Benghazi were detained by the Libyan opposition before being taken off by the frigate Cumberland. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, told the Commons he had known of the mission but not of the operational details. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the Government would set up new enterprise zones. Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, criticised bank bonuses and the concept of being ‘too big to fail’. Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, received a £6.5 million bonus. Northern Rock made an annual loss of £232 million. A review by Tom Winsor recommended cuts to police overtime and allowances. The Royal Mail issued first-class stamps depicting Lord Voldemort.

The Duke of York was criticised for remaining a friend of a rich American who had been convicted of sexual relations with an underage girl. Sarah, Duchess of York, said it had been a ‘terrible, terrible’ mistake of hers to accept the man’s offer of £15,000 to pay one of her creditors. One day a Downing Street source said that there would be no ‘tears shed’ if the Duke resigned from his role as Britain’s trade ambassador; the next morning the Prime Minister’s official spokesman insisted that the Government was ‘fully supportive’ of his decision to stay on. The Queen is to make a state visit to the Republic of Ireland; the last monarch to visit Ireland was George V in 1911. Kate Middleton tossed a pancake outdoors in Belfast during a visit there with her fiancé Prince William.

The Liberal Democrat candidate came sixth, losing his deposit, in the by-election at Barnsley Central, the previous Labour MP for which, Eric Illsley, had been imprisoned for dishonestly claiming expenses.