Portrait of the week: Curfew street parties, Trump’s taxes and a bone-eating vulture

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More than a quarter of the population of the United Kingdom (three-fifths of the Welsh, a third of the Scots and two-thirds of those in northern England) were put under harsher coronavirus restrictions. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, amid a flurry of local lockdowns, found himself unable to state the coronavirus restrictions suddenly imposed on the north-east. He said ‘six in a home, six in hospitality’ could meet, though the law said that members of different households could not meet at all indoors. Universal laws, brought in by statutory instruments, prohibited eating or drinking in bars, restaurants or clubs after 10 p.m. In cities such as York and Liverpool, people thronged the street after closing time, dancing and drinking from bottles; others fetched more from supermarkets. Police in Scotland broke up more than 300 house parties over the weekend. The Houses of Parliament said it would not serve alcohol after 10 p.m., even though its outlets counted as ‘workplace canteens’. Fines of up to £10,000 could be imposed by fixed penalty notices, without trial. Police were told not to install the new NHS Covid-19 app on their work smartphones. A bone-eating vulture, Gypaetus barbatus, was spotted in Norfolk.

At the beginning of the week, Sunday 27 September, total deaths (within 28 days of testing positive for the coronavirus) stood at 41,971, of whom 212 had died in the past week, compared with 136 the week before. New cases detected reached 7,143 in a day. Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers, was ready to defeat the government if it would not give MPs votes on coronavirus laws. After 127 students at Manchester Metropolitan University were found to have coronavirus, 1,700 were sent to their rooms for 14 days’ quarantine.