Portrait of the week | 19 September 2012

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The government gave a commercial company, Capita, a contract to find and remove more than 150,000 migrants who have overstayed their visas. A French court prohibited a magazine from republishing pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge topless, or distributing them. After appearing in the French magazine, the pictures had been printed in the Irish Daily Star. The Duke and Duchess continued their Jubilee year tour, taking in the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. In a freedom of information case brought by a Guardian journalist, an appeal court ruled that correspondence between Prince Charles and the government should be made public. Derek Jameson, a former editor of the Daily Star, died, aged 82. Lord Stevens of Ludgate, a former chairman of United Newspapers, joined Ukip. In the past year councils have issued 3,197 fines for alleged crimes involving dustbins.

The annual rate of inflation fell a touch to 2.5 per cent in August (from 2.6 in July) as measured by the Consumer Prices Index, or to 2.9 (from 3.2) by the Retail Prices Index. The government hatched plans to break the link between inflation and the annual increase in benefits. Two unarmed policewomen were killed in a gun and grenade attack at Mottram, Greater Manchester, shortly after which Dale Cregan, a man wanted over two other killings, turned himself in. A 35-year-old woman from North Yorkshire who admitted aborting her own baby in the final phase of her pregnancy was jailed for eight years. Natural England granted farmers in Gloucestershire a licence to shoot badgers.

The government pondered a proposed merger between the defence concerns BAE and EADS (in which the French and German governments have interests). The GCSE examination in England is to be replaced in core subjects by an ‘English Baccalaureate Certificate’, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, announced.