The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 20 August 2015

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Andrew Burnham described calls from Yvette Cooper, a rival candidate for the Labour leadership, for him to withdraw from the contest as ‘quite strange’. The problem was how to prevent Jeremy Corbyn, a left-winger, from being elected by the alternative vote system by 610,000 party members and registered supporters. Gordon Brown, the former disastrous Labour prime minister, contributed by making a 50-minute speech in a small room at the Royal Festival Hall, during which he paced up and down continuously for an estimated 1 mile 1 furlong 5 chains and did not mention Mr Corbyn’s name. Kezia Dugdale, a Member of the Scottish Parliament, was elected leader of the Scottish Labour party; the party has only one seat in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway announced it would host the World Gold Panning Championships in 2017.

The annual rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Prices Index rose to 0.1 per cent, from nothing in June, but the rate measured by the Retail Prices Index remained at 1 per cent. This determined the 1 per cent by which regulated rail fares will rise in January. HM Revenue and Customs earmarked £43 billion in provisions and contingent liabilities in case a series of law suits it is fighting go against it. The busy Mancunian Way, south of Manchester city centre, was closed after a sink hole opened up and continued to grow. A survey of babies’ names in the past year by the Office for National Statistics showed that 53 girls had been called by the fictional title Khaleesi from Game of Thrones and four boys Messi.

The Queen was not blown up by the Islamic State, as Sky News had predicted she might be, but, with the Duke of Edinburgh, attended a service at St Martin-in-the-Fields to mark the 70th anniversary of VJ Day.

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