Portrait of the week | 27 November 2010

Britain is to lend Ireland up to £9 billion.

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Britain is to lend Ireland up to £9 billion. ‘Ireland is a friend in need,’ George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Commons, ‘and it is in our national interest that we should be prepared to help them at this difficult time.’ British loans could be made via three routes: bilaterally through the European Union; through an agreement under the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism; and through the International Monetary Fund. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said that the number of workers coming from outside the European Union would be capped at 43,000, about 5,600 fewer than last year’s figure; meanwhile figures for foreign students entering Britain last year stood at 362,000. Foreign-born workers now hold 13 per cent of all British jobs, twice the rate in 1997. Four men were arrested in connection with the discovery of a man dying in the back of a van in Sunningdale, Berkshire, 40 minutes after it was stopped by police.

Prince William and Kate Middleton are to marry at Westminster Abbey, it was announced, on Friday 29 April, which will be a bank holiday. The wedding is to be paid for privately by the royal family and the Middletons. The Rt Rev Pete Broadbent, the go-ahead Bishop of Willesden, was made to ‘withdraw from public ministry until further notice’ after saying, ‘I managed to avoid the last disaster in slow motion between Big Ears and the Porcelain Doll’ and adding, ‘I give the marriage seven years.’

Mr Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, told his MPs that being in opposition was ‘frankly, crap’. He said that Peter Hain, the shadow Welsh secretary, would report to next year’s conference on a review of policy, party organisation and Labour’s relationship with trade unions.