Portrait of the week | 30 May 2013

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Ten men were arrested in connection with the public, daylight murder of Drummer Lee Rigby near his barracks in Woolwich. The two chief suspects, Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, Britons of Nigerian descent and converts to Islam, had waited in the street after the hacking to death of the soldier until armed police arrived, and were then shot. Adebolajo had made some statements recorded on a mobile phone. The two men were taken to different hospitals with wounds said not to be life-threatening, and Adebowale was discharged into police custody after six days. MI5 was said to have previously attempted to recruit Adebolajo, who was found to have been arrested in Kenya in 2010. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, asked whether people with extreme views should be allowed to talk on television; she also said she wanted to press ahead with a communications data bill — called by some a ‘snooper’s charter’. A prison officer at Full Sutton prison was taken captive for four hours by three prisoners and suffered a broken cheekbone. Two men were arrested after a Pakistan International Airline plane was diverted to Stansted under the escort of an RAF Typhoon jet. When half a dozen protesters from the English Defence League arrived at the Bull Lane mosque in York they were invited in for tea and biscuits.

George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, boasted that he had reached agreement with seven Whitehall departments, including Justice, Energy and Communities, on government savings he wants made in 2015. The BBC dropped a project to digitise its production systems after spending £98.4 million; Tony Hall, the new director-general, said it had ‘wasted a huge amount of licence-fee payers’ money’. A dog killed a pensioner in Liverpool.