Portrait of the week | 17 January 2013

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David Cameron, the Prime Minister, brought forward his speech on new relations with the European Union from 22 January when it was realised that it was the 50th anniversary of the Elysée treaty between Germany and France. Britain went to war in Mali by sending two transport planes in support of the French invasion directed against Islamist groups. The rights of a British Airways employee, Nadia Eweida, had been violated by her being forbidden to wear a cross at work, the European Court of Human Rights ruled. But a marriage counsellor sacked for saying he might object to giving sex therapy advice to gay couples, a registrar who refused to conduct same-sex civil partnership ceremonies, and a nurse who wanted to wear a necklace with a cross had not suffered violation of their rights. Liberal Democrat peers joined with the opposition to delay the reduction of MPs by 50 until 2018. Horsemeat was found in burgers sold by Tesco, Iceland, Lidl and Aldi.

HMV, with 239 shops and 4,350 employees, went into administration. Jessops, the camera chain, went into administration and its 187 shops, with 1,370 staff, were closed. Inflation measured by the CPI remained at 2.7 per cent for the third month, but as measured by the RPI it edged up from 3 to 3.1 per cent. The Office for National Statistics had earlier surprised everyone by leaving unchanged the way RPI is calculated, though it decided to publish figures in addition derived from RPIJ — the Retail Prices Index calculated by the Jevons formula. A helicopter crashed into a crane at a tower block under construction at Vauxhall in London. The City of London approved a 38-storey, 620ft tower nicknamed the Scalpel, to be built in Lime Street.