Portrait of the week | 13 June 2019

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Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, a candidate for the Conservative leadership, admitted he had used cocaine several times 20 years ago. ‘I deeply regret the mistake that I made,’ he said. ‘It was a crime.’ He also said: ‘Certainly when I was working as a journalist I didn’t imagine I would go into politics.’ His admission came as the Daily Mail published extracts from a biography on Gove by Owen Bennett, due to be released next month, that relates an earlier admission of cocaine use to party colleagues. Ten candidates for the leadership started the race after Sam Gyimah withdrew: Michael Gove, Matt Hancock, Mark Harper, Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom, Esther McVey, Dominic Raab and Rory Stewart. Later on Thursday, those failing to get the backing of 16 MPs were to be knocked out. Gove had proposed abolishing VAT in favour of a ‘lower, simpler’ alternative. Johnson suggested raising the threshold for the 40 per cent rate of income tax to £80,000. Three hospital patients died after eating chicken sandwiches, supplied by the Good Food Chain, contaminated with listeria bacteria.

The momentum of the Brexit party faltered when it narrowly failed to win Peterborough in a by-election, the seat being held by Labour with 10,484 votes, a majority of 683. The Conservative candidate polled 7,243 and the Liberal Democrats in fourth place polled 4,159. When Jeremy Corbyn met the parliamentary Labour party, he was criticised by Dame Margaret Hodge and others for not dealing with anti-Semitism; the new MP for Peterborough apologised to MPs for having ‘liked’ a Facebook post that had included the remark that Theresa May had a ‘Zionist slave masters agenda’. Among the 508 women and 565 men listed in the Queen’s birthday honours, knighthoods went to Simon Russell Beale, the actor; Stephen Cleobury, director of music at King’s College, Cambridge; Alexander Younger, chief of MI6; Andrew Parker, director of MI5, and Boyd Tunnock, inventor of Tunnock’s teacakes.