The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 4 August 2016

Home

The Court of Appeal overturned a ruling that four Syrian refugees living in Calais’ jungle camp could come to Britain because they had relatives here. The Appeal Court judges said that they should have claimed asylum in the first country they came to; the judgment will not affect the refugees, who are already in Britain. The High Court ruled that the NHS was wrong to say it lacked the ‘legal power to commission Prep’, or ‘pre-exposure prophylaxis’ drug, which is effective in 86 per cent of cases in preventing HIV viruses from multiplying; the drug costs £400 a month and is taken by men who practise anal intercourse but do not use condoms. The number of armed police in London was to increase by 600 to 2,800.

EDF, the French energy company, formally agreed to build the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, and the menus had been printed for a celebratory lunch with British officials and Chinese backers, but the government surprised everyone by saying it would not make a decision until the autumn. Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, said: ‘What China cannot understand is the “suspicious approach” that comes from nowhere.’ Ofgem, the energy regulator, said that from April four million customers using pre-pay meters would be protected by a cap on charges. Sir Julian King, who has been British ambassador in Paris since January, and was nominated as Britain’s new European Commissioner by David Cameron when he was prime minister, is to be ‘commissioner for the security union’, Jean-Claude Juncker announced. The EU said that Britain should pay the pensions for 1,730 British EU officials, making up 8 per cent of 22,000 pensioners, who receive £1.2 billion a year. A family in Monmouthshire won £61,102,443 in the EuroMillions lottery.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in