Portrait of the week: Alex Salmond’s party, China’s H&M ban and protests in Bristol and Batley

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More than 30 million had received their first dose vaccination. The government remained confident of supplying second doses and of vaccinating all the adult population by July, despite a delay in supplies from India and threats from the EU to stop exports. In response to EU hostility, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Companies may look at such actions and draw conclusions about whether or not it is sensible to make future investments.’ The Novavax vaccine, more than 50 million doses of which would be available if approved by the MHRA, would be made and packaged entirely in Britain. The Moderna vaccine was also expected to be available from the end of April. Third-dose vaccinations were planned from September for the over-seventies to meet the danger from variants. At dawn on 28 March, total UK deaths (within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus) had stood at 126,573, a rise of 452 in the preceding week. On 28 March no one in London was reported to have died from Covid. Only four people could be found with coronavirus in the Cotswolds district, population 90,000.

Alex Salmond, a former first minister of Scotland, fresh from his tussle with Nicola Sturgeon, the current first minister, launched the new Alba party, seeking what he called a ‘supermajority for independence’ in the Scottish parliament. Two SNP MPs joined his party. China barred from entering its territory, or Hong Kong, five MPs (Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Nusrat Ghani, Tim Loughton, Tom Tugendhat and Neil O’Brien), Baroness Kennedy, Lord Alton, the lawyer Sir Geoffrey Nice QC and an academic, Jo Smith Finley. The government said it would not meet a request for £170 million by Liberty Steel, which employs 5,000 staff at its 12 UK plants and has lost financial help from Greensill Capital, which had gone bust.