Portrait of the week | 23 June 2012

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Europe faced ‘perpetual stagnation’ unless leaders acted to resolve the euro crisis, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said at the G20 summit of leading economies in Mexico. He also said that he would ‘welcome more French businesses to Britain’, where they would pay tax at a lower rate than that imposed by the Socialist government. David Lidington, the Europe Minister, insisted that a proposal by European Union ministers to reduce the British budget rebate was pointless, as Britain would not accept it. Workers paid less than £13,000 a year will no longer be able to claim working tax credits when they are on strike, the government said. Argyll and Bute council reversed its decision to ban Martha Payne, a nine-year-old girl, from photographing her school dinner each day for her blog; publicity over the affair enabled her to raise more than £80,000 for the charity Mary’s Meals in Malawi.

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A ship bound for Syria with refurbished Russian helicopters was stopped off Scotland by having its insurance withdrawn in London. Kenneth Branagh, the actor, was knighted in the Queen’s birthday honours and Tessa Jowell, the politician who served for a spell as the minister for the Olympics, was made a Dame. April Ashley, who underwent a sex change operation in Casablanca in 1960, was appointed MBE ‘for services to transgender equality’. Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, having lost an appeal against extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges, sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Rolls-Royce won a £1.1 billion contract to produce reactor cores for new British submarines. Russell Brand, the comedian, introduced the Dalai Lama on stage in Manchester.

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Inflation fell to 2.8 from 3 per cent (by CPI) or to 3.1