Portrait of the week: Sunak’s Brexit deal, Hancock’s WhatsApp messages and a cucumber crisis

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The Northern Ireland Protocol was modified by something called the Windsor Framework, agreed between Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, and Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission. He said that Stormont would be able to apply a brake to new EU goods rules; the brake would allow the UK government to apply a veto. Goods from Britain for Northern Ireland would travel through a ‘green lane’ with fewer checks, and those that might move on into the EU through a ‘red lane’. The ban on importing British chilled sausages and seed potatoes would end. After announcing the agreement, Mrs von der Leyen was granted an audience with the King at Windsor Castle. Mr Sunak visited Northern Ireland. The New IRA said it had carried out the shooting in Omagh, in front of his son, of Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell, who was taken to hospital critically wounded.

Using information from 100,000 WhatsApp messages, the Daily Telegraph said that Matt Hancock, when health secretary, did not follow advice from Professor Sir Chris Whitty on testing ‘all going into care homes’ during the Covid pandemic. Ofgem announced that the energy price cap on the amount suppliers could charge would mean a reduction in charges for a typical customer from £4,279 in January to £3,280 in April, because of falling wholesale prices. At the same time, the government’s Energy Price Guarantee was raised from £2,500 to £3,000, meaning that it would still subsidise the average household by £280 a year. Britain would not follow the United States and EU in banning officials from using Chinese-owned TikTok, said Michelle Donelan, the Secretary of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology: ‘I think that’s a personal choice.’ Jennie Barber from Birmingham succeeded in court in making BA refund the price of tickets to Japan instead of giving her vouchers.