The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 6 August 2015

issue 08 August 2015

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Tom Hayes, aged 35, a former City trader who rigged the Libor rates daily for nearly four years while working in Tokyo for UBS, then Citigroup, from 2006 until 2010, was jailed by Southwark Crown Court for 14 years for conspiracy to defraud. The government sold a 5.4 per cent stake in Royal Bank of Scotland, for 330p a share, against the 500p or so that it paid six or seven years ago to save the banking group; the government now owns 73 per cent of RBS. Monitor, the regulator for health services in England, sent out letters ‘challenging the plans of the 46 foundation trusts with the biggest deficits’. Kids Company, the charity founded by Camila Batmanghelidjh, appeared likely to close. Dairy farmers protested at the price they are paid for milk by buying it from supermarkets and giving it away. Andrew Hawes, from Leiston, Suffolk, dressed in camouflage and hid in bushes to catch owners who let dogs foul the path.

The Bishop of Dover said that David Cameron, the Prime Minister, had ‘dehumanised’ migrants by saying ‘you have got a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life’. Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, said Britain had ‘got a grip’ on the crisis at Calais, where hundreds of migrants attempted each night to stow away in lorries and trains. Manston airport, 28 miles from the Eurotunnel terminal, was set aside as a lorry park during disruption. Haulage companies were found to have paid more than £4 million in fines after migrants were found in their lorries. The London Underground was closed by a strike. RAF Tornado jets, due to have been withdrawn from service last March, would be available for air strikes against the Islamic State until 2017, according to Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary.

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