Portrait of the week | 31 July 2014

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Britain is to halve to three months the time that EU migrants without realistic job prospects can claim benefits, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said in an article for the Daily Telegraph. Workers for the Passport Office who belong to the Public and Commercial Services Union went on strike ostensibly to ‘end staffing shortages that have caused the ongoing backlog crisis’. Driverless cars will be allowed on roads from next year. Newham council in east London approved a £1 billion scheme for an ‘Asian Business Port’ to be built by the Chinese at the Royal Albert Dock. The Gherkin office block in London was put up for sale, with expectations of its fetching £650 million. People in Tring complained of the smell of sewage sludge on fields.

Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, said that the deadly ebola virus, which has killed 672 people in west Africa, was a threat to Britain. Universities should be able to buy student debts, according to David Willetts, who was recently sacked as universities minister. British car factories have increased production by 50 per cent in the past four years. Fracking would only be allowed at beauty spots in ‘exceptional circumstances’ the government said in rules for a new round of bidding for licences. Three 325-foot towers at Didcot power station were demolished with explosives at 5 a.m. to stop too many people watching.

Up to 60 prisoners rioted at Ranby prison, Nottinghamshire, which a week earlier had been criticised by HM Inspectorate of Prisons as violent and unsafe. The first woman commander of a frigate left her appointment while the Royal Navy investigates claims that she had an affair with someone in the ship’s company. Max Mosley sued Google for continuing to publish images of him at a sex party that had appeared in the News of the World, which he successfully sued in 2008.