Portrait of the week | 7 September 2017

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On being asked if she meant to lead the Conservatives into the next election, due in 2022, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Yes. I’m in this for the long term.’ Echoing Peter Mandelson’s remark in 2001, she said: ‘I’m not a quitter.’ Research by Conservative Home found that 52 per cent of Conservative party members wanted her gone before 2022. A memo from Lynton Crosby sent in April, before Mrs May called an early election, turned up in the Mail on Sunday: ‘Clearly a lot of risk involved with holding an early election, and there is a real need to nail down the “why” for doing so now.’ The Duchess of Cambridge announced that she was expecting her third child. Meghan Markle, the actress who is a friend of Prince Harry, told Vanity Fair: ‘We’re two people who are really happy and in love.’

The government presented its European Union (Withdrawal) Bill to the House of Commons. Dustmen in Birmingham resumed a strike which had been suspended. Disorder at HM Prison Birmingham led to 28 prisoners being transferred elsewhere. The online gambling company 888 is to pay a penalty of £7.8 million after failing to protect vulnerable customers. The Duke of Richmond and Gordon, who restored the fortunes of Goodwood, died aged 87. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the former Archbishop of Westminster, died aged 85.

As the British government prepared to relax its 1 per cent cap on public-sector pay rises for people like nurses and teachers, Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, said that the cap would be scrapped there next year and new petrol cars phased out by 2032. At least five frigates are to be built in United Kingdom shipyards. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, who is vegetarian, denied reports that he was planning to go vegan.