Portrait of the Week – 4 July 2019

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Boris Johnson, the bookies’ favourite for the leadership of the Conservative party, would, if he became prime minister, ‘show the public sector some love’ said his supporter Matt Hancock. Jeremy Hunt, his rival for the leadership, said: ‘If you’re a sheep farmer in Shropshire or a fisherman in Peterhead… I will mitigate the impact of no-deal Brexit on you.’ The 160,000 members of the Conservative party, few of them public-sector workers, and even fewer sheep farmers or fisherfolk, were sent postal ballots from 6 July to vote for the new leader. The Speaker chose not to select an amendment by Dame Margaret Beckett and Dominic Grieve intended to stop Britain leaving the EU without an agreement by depriving some public services of funding in the event. Serco, the outsourcing company, was fined £19 million after charging the government for tagging prisoners who were no longer alive. Siteserv, a recycling company, was fined £40,000 for allowing 2,000 tons of refuse to combust spontaneously and burn for two weeks at a depot in Cowbridge, Glamorgan.

Nigel Farage’s Brexit party held a rally of 5,000 supporters in Birmingham to present 100 candidates for the next general election, but none of their names were disclosed. George Osborne, the former chancellor and present editor of the Evening Standard, and his wife, Frances, are to divorce after 21 years of marriage. Min Hogg, the founder of the World of Interiors, died aged 80. The body of a man was found in a garden in Clapham, south-west London, thought to be that of a stowaway fallen from an airplane from Kenya.

Chris Williamson, the Labour MP readmitted to the party last week after being suspended in February over things he had said about anti-Semitism, was suspended again after more than 100 Labour MPs wrote to the party chairman.