Portrait of the Week: Starmer’s first steps, Biden’s wobble and Australia’s egg shortage

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Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, appointed several ministers who are not MPs, but will be created life peers. Most cabinet posts went to MPs who had shadowed the portfolios, but as Attorney General he appointed Richard Hermer KC, a human rights lawyer, instead of Emily Thornberry, who said she was ‘very sorry and surprised’. James Timpson, the shoe-repair businessman and prison reformer, was made prisons minister. Sir Patrick Vallance was made science minister. The former home secretary Jacqui Smith became higher education minister; Ellie Reeves, the sister of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, became minister without portfolio. The government dropped the phrase ‘levelling up’. The Chancellor said she would override planning regulations to build hundreds of wind-turbines on land and thousands of houses. Sir Keir said that this was ‘a government unburdened by doctrine, guided only by a determination to serve your interests’.

Labour had more than doubled its seats to 412, though its share of the vote rose by only 1.6 percentage points to 33.7 per cent. A drop in support for the Conservatives saw them lose 251 seats to be left with 121. Rishi Sunak said he would resign as Conservative leader once arrangements were in place to find a successor: ‘To the country I would like to say, first and foremost, I am sorry.’ Among shadow cabinet changes Andrew Mitchell replaced Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton as shadow foreign secretary. The Liberal Democrats won 72 seats. The SNP lost 39 seats, retaining only nine. Sinn Fein, with seven seats, which it chooses not to take, became Northern Ireland’s biggest Westminster party. The 59.7 per cent turnout was the worst since 2001. A survey suggested 425,000 people were prevented from voting by not taking photo identity.