Portrait of the week | 2 June 2012

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The government revised plans announced in the Budget to put VAT on warm Cornish pasties and supermarket rotisserie food, and reduced the proposed 20 per cent VAT on static caravans to 5 per cent. It launched an £82 million scheme to lend money (typically £2,500) to people aged between 18 and 24 who want to start a business. Baroness Warsi, the co-chairman of the Conservative party, referred herself to the Lords commissioner for standards after newspapers alleged that she claimed accommodation allowance while staying with a friend rent-free. A government internet service for people to discover how much income tax they pay broke down on its first day. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, said he would rather ‘die in a ditch’ than allow a third runway at Heathrow.

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Abu Qatada, the extremist Muslim cleric, is to remain in prison until an appeal against his deportation is heard in October, after Mr Justice Mitting decided that allowing him bail during the heightened security of the Olympic Games would be ‘exceptionally problematic’. Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, lost his appeal to the Supreme Court against extradition to Sweden on a charge of rape. The government dropped proposals for inquests involving sensitive intelligence to be held behind closed doors; but it persevered with plans to allow judges in civil cases to decide to hear in camera evidence regarding national security. A woman was jailed for 21 weeks for shouting, ‘You Africans take our council flats’ and other racial abuse on a London Underground train; her seven-minute rant had become a hit on YouTube.

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‘It was a relationship about power,’ Tony Blair, a former prime minister, told the Leveson inquiry into media standards about his dealings with Rupert Murdoch. ‘I would not have been godfather to one of his children on the basis of my relationship in office,’ he added.