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Portrait of the week: Inflation hits 30-year high, Andrew settles out of court and Turkey changes its name

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Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, made ready for a Russian invasion of Ukraine by cutting short a planned visit to northern England for a Cobra meeting. ‘We are on the edge of a precipice,’ he said. He said Britain was prepared to target Russian banks and companies, and stop them raising money on London’s financial markets. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, condemned an online rally called No War in Ukraine: Stop Nato Expansion, organised by the Stop the War coalition, of which Jeremy Corbyn is the deputy president. Petrol prices reached a new high of 148.02p a litre. Inflation rose to 5.5 per cent, its highest for 30 years. Unemployment fell to 4.1 per cent and job vacancies reached a record of 1.3 million; wages fell by 0.8 per cent of their value a year earlier.

The United Kingdom awaited an announcement on 21 February, after the end of the parliamentary recess, on a hoped-for lifting of coronavirus restrictions, including an end to the legal obligation to self-isolate in the event of catching it. In the seven days up to the beginning of this week, 1,275 people had died with coronavirus, bringing total deaths (within 28 days of testing positive) to 159,518. (In the previous week, deaths had numbered 2,630.) Numbers with Covid remaining in hospital fell from about 14,000 to about 12,000. The Duchess of Cornwall tested positive for Covid four days after the Prince of Wales found he had caught it for the second time, but the Queen, with whom he had spent time, continued with her engagements, giving an online audience to the Estonian ambassador. The Duke of York settled out of court a civil sexual assault case brought against him in the United States by Virginia Giuffre, to whom he would pay an undisclosed sum, put by some at more than £12 million.

The Met Police Federation, representing 31,000 officers, declared it had ‘no faith’ in Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, after Dame Cressida Dick resigned as commissioner of the force following his withdrawal of confidence in her.

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