Portrait of the week | 30 July 2011

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Gross Domestic Product grew by 0.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2011, after a quarter in which growth was 0.5 per cent, according to the Office for National Statistics, which took the trouble to mention extenuating circumstances such as the Japanese tsunami and the royal wedding. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, urged George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to cut taxes, including the top rate of 50 per cent. BP made profits of £3.2 billion in the second quarter, less than expected. Sales of beer fell in the second quarter by 15 per cent in supermarkets and 4.5 per cent in pubs. Amy Winehouse, the singer, was found dead at home; she was 27. Lucian Freud, the painter, died, aged 88. Fran Landesman, the poet and performer, died, aged 83. Alexander McQueen, the fashion designer who committed suicide last year, left £50,000 in his £16 million will for the care of his dogs.

The High Court, sitting in Birmingham, heard a legal challenge by three families to a Home Office ruling requiring anyone entering Britain in order to join a spouse to speak a minimum level of English. Basildon council trained 100 bailiffs before a £18 million operation intended to evict travellers from 51 unauthorised pitches at Crays Hill, Essex. Two Germans arrested at Dover were charged with terrorism offences.

The DNA profiles of more than a million innocent people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland could be retained by local forensic science laboratories, despite a promise by the Home Office to delete them from a national database. British Gas was fined £2.5 million by Ofgem because of the way it dealt with customers’ complaints. The M4 in South Wales remained shut for days after a lorry caught fire in the Brynglas tunnels at Newport.