Portrait of the week | 21 April 2012

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Abu Qatada, wanted in Jordan on terrorism charges, was held in prison in England again, two months after his release from prison, and Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said he would be deported to Jordan, although ‘deportation may still take time’. Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a Libyan commander, sued Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, alleging that he was instrumental in his arrest by US agents who sent him into the clutches of the late Colonel Gaddafi. Charities campaigned against the plans by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to limit tax relief on big donations to £50,000 or a quarter of the donor’s income, whichever the higher. Seventeen counties, south and east of a line from Scarborough to the Bristol Channel, were added to those deemed to be suffering from drought. Neptune Collonges won the Grand National by a nose in a race that saw two horses put down after falling.

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A Department of Energy report into fracking, the shale-gas extraction technique that caused two small earthquakes near Blackpool, said that it should go ahead, and would be expected to cause no bigger earthquakes than coalmining. Mark Carney, the governor of Canada’s central bank, has, according to the Financial Times, been sounded out as a replacement for Sir Mervyn King when he retires as Governor of the Bank of England next year. Aquascutum, founded in 1851, went into administration. Jaeger, founded in 1884, was sold to Better Capital, which last month bought the double-glazing company Everest. Marks & Spencer sales fell a little after it ran out of knitwear during a cold spell in February. Unemployment fell by 35,000 to 2.65 million. The annual rate of inflation rose to 3.5 per cent (measured by the CPI) from 3.4