Portrait of the week | 25 June 2011

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David Cameron, the Prime Minister, reversed the suggestion by Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, that prisoners who had pleaded guilty at an early stage should have their sentences halved. Earlier he had said that he saw no reason why Britain should be ‘dragged in’ to support a Greek bailout. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, proposed that Greece should be allowed to default and to leave the EU. Air Chief Marshal Sir Simon Bryant, in a briefing for MPs leaked to the press, said that the RAF’s capacity for future missions was under threat if Britain’s intervention in Libya continued beyond the summer. In response Mr Cameron said: ‘There are moments when I wake up and think “You do the fighting, I’ll do the talking”.’ The Royal College of Psychiatrists said people over 65 should drink no more than half a pint of beer a day.

Dave Prentis, the leader of Unison, the union representing 1.3 million public-sector workers, said there could be protracted strikes if negotiations with the government over pension reform failed. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, said: ‘The trade unions must not walk into the trap of giving George Osborne the confrontation he wants to divert attention from a failing economy.’ Two thirds of applicants for tickets for the 2012 Olympic Games failed to get any. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said: ‘It has become easier to get an A at A-level or GCSE than it used to be, and that’s a problem.’ Police arrested a teenager in Essex after claims appeared online that the 2011 census database had been stolen and would be published in full.

The Church of England declared: ‘Someone in a sexually active relationship outside marriage is not eligible for the episcopate,’ but it countenanced homosexual candidates in civil partnerships if they were celibate.