Portrait of the week | 2 April 2011

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At a conference on Libya held in London, representatives of more than 40 nations and international bodies declared that Colonel Gaddafi’s regime had ‘lost legitimacy and will be held accountable for their actions’. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, told delegates that attacks would continue until Colonel Gaddafi met UN terms, and that supplying arms to the rebels was not prohibited. Outside, 100 protesters chanted: ‘Go to hell, Cameron.’ HMS Ark Royal was advertised for sale online. In Northampton a cat called Smokey was found to purr at 73 decibels.

About 250,000 people marched through London in a TUC demonstration against spending cuts. Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition, told them: ‘I am proud to stand with you.’ But by the end of the day there were 201 arrests as a few hundred people lit fires in the street, smashed bank windows, ran riot in Fortnum & Mason and sprayed graffiti on the base of Nelson’s Column. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said she was willing to grant the police extra powers. Mr Miliband put Peter Hain in charge of a project called Refounding Labour, which sought to gain party supporters. Mr Miliband is to marry Justine Thornton, the mother of his two children, on 27 May. H.R.F. Keating, the detective novelist, died, aged 84. Thirty-eight patients who had undergone operations in South Wales and 21 in Essex were told they ran an extremely small risk of contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease from instruments.

Councils hoping to sell off libraries found that the Literary and Scientific Institutions Act 1854 directed that land should be returned to donors. The Competition Commission ordered BAA to sell two airports. Liberal Democrat ministers floated the idea of a tax on expensive houses to make up for future abolition of the 50p tax rate.