Portrait of the week | 25 October 2012

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Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative chief whip, resigned, still denying that he referred to police as ‘plebs’ for refusing to allow him to cycle through the main gate to Downing Street three weeks ago. The Chancellor, George Osborne, was caught in a first-class carriage with a standard-class ticket. One of his aides paid £160 for an upgrade, saying that the Chancellor couldn’t possibly travel in standard class. The Prime Minister said that energy companies would be put under a duty to make sure that their customers were on the lowest-possible tariff, but the plan lasted only three hours. The working population rose by 212,000 to just under 30 million, the highest number ever recorded. Lord Blair, former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, called upon the public to boycott the first elections for police commissioners, due on 15 November. David Cameron said, in a speech on crime policy, that ‘retribution is not a dirty word’.

BBC news channels were preoccupied with the story of how the BBC programme Newsnight failed to report accusations that the late disc jockey Jimmy Savile allegedly abused underage girls on BBC premises. The editor of Newsnight ‘stepped aside’ after emails revealed a slightly different string of events regarding the cancelling of the report than had previously been given. The BBC director-general George Entwistle told MPs it was a mistake to cancel the report. A programme to cull badgers in areas where bovine TB is present was delayed for a year. Frankel, the British thoroughbred racehorse, retired undefeated after winning the Champion Stakes at Ascot.

Two Scottish National Party MSPs, John Finnie and Jean Urquhart, quit the party in protest at its new policy favouring membership of Nato. The SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon admitted that the leader, Alex Salmond, had not taken legal advice on whether an independent Scotland would have to reapply for membership of the EU, contrary to assurances he had given.