Portrait of the week | 28 April 2012

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The British economy went back into recession, shrinking by 0.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2012, following a contraction of 0.3 per cent in the last quarter of 2011. Government debt rose by £117 million over last year’s figure, to £1,022.5 billion, equivalent to 66 per cent of GDP. George Osborne, the Chancellor, lent the International Monetary Fund another $15 billion to help it bail out countries in the eurozone. In the Commons, Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition, had earlier characterised Mr Osborne’s Budget as an ‘omnishambles’. Nadine Dorries, a backbench Conservative MP, called David Cameron and Mr Osborne ‘two posh boys who don’t know the price of milk, but they are two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others — and that is their real crime’. The Commons Public Administration Committee said that ‘the government’s inability to express coherent and relevant strategic aims’ was leading to mistakes and muddle.

An email released to the Leveson inquiry, sent by Frederic Michel, the head of public affairs at News International, to James Murdoch, on the eve of an announcement by Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, to Parliament on the proposed takeover by News International of BSkyB, said: ‘Managed to get some infos [sic] on the plans for tomorrow (although absolutely illegal!)’. The details proved accurate. At the inquiry, James Murdoch said Mr Cameron and he had discussed News Corporation’s bid to buy out BSkyB at a Christmas dinner. Michael Brown, jailed in his absence for seven years for stealing £36  million from clients after posing as a bond dealer, was sent back to Britain after being arrested in the Dominican Republic; before going on the run, he had managed to donate £2.4