Portrait of the week | 15 August 2013

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The population of the United Kingdom rose by 420,000, to 63.7 million, by the middle of last year, with the number of births, 813,000 (more than a quarter to mothers born abroad), being the highest since 1972. Thames Water asked the regulator Ofwat to allow it to impose a 12 per cent increase on bills. Unemployment fell by 4,000 to 2.51 million in the second quarter. Regulated rail fares will rise by 4.1 per cent, a percentage point higher than the rate of inflation in July, which, measured by the Retail Prices Index, fell from 3.3 to 3.1 per cent, and, measured by the Consumer Prices Index, from 2.9 to 2.8 per cent. The rate of house price inflation rose from 2.9 per cent to 3.1 per cent. Jeremy Paxman appeared on Newsnight with a beard.

In a version of a speech given to the Sunday Telegraph, Chris Bryant, the shadow immigration minister, blamed Tesco for giving staff a pay cut if they moved to a new distribution centre ‘in Kent’, with the result that ‘a large percentage of the staff at the new centre are from the Eastern bloc’. Tesco responded vigorously regarding its new centre (in Essex), and when the speech was delivered, Mr Bryant praised Tesco as ‘a good employer’. The Labour party asked the House of Commons Library what had happened to hourly wages since 2010, and was told that they had fallen by 5.5 per cent. England beat Australia in the fourth Ashes Test, making it three-nil, with one draw.

Downing Street told Madrid that it was ‘seriously considering’ legal action over delays at the border with Gibraltar. A Royal Navy warship sailed to Gibraltar in a long-planned manoeuvre. In Belfast, rioting crowds, protesting against a republican parade, threw bricks, pint glasses, bottles and fireworks at police, injuring 56.