Portrait of the week: water, water, everywhere

Home

The Somerset Levels continued to wallow in floods. The Environment Agency was widely blamed for not having dredged channels, and for putting the welfare of water voles before flood prevention. Its chairman, Lord Smith of Finsbury, said there were ‘tricky issues of policy and priority: town or country, front rooms or farmland?’ The Prince of Wales visited the area. At the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford, 5.78 inches of rain fell in January, the most since its records began in 1767. Cuadrilla said it would drill and frack for shale gas at Roseacre Wood and Little Plumpton in Lancashire. Two men found 300 medieval silver coins in a field near Kirkcudbright.

Lloyds Banking Group set aside another £1.8 billion to compensate for mis-sold payment protection insurance, taking its total to £10 billion, all in preparation for the government privatising more of its 32.7 per cent stake. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said he wanted schools to stay open for 10 hours a day. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said he wanted pubs to stay open until one o’clock in the morning when England plays its first game in the World Cup in June. Thirsk and Malton Conservative Association deselected Anne McIntosh. South Suffolk Conservative Association deselected Tim Yeo. The Guardian published the report suppressed by the Labour party into interference by the Unite union with selection of a parliamentary candidate for Falkirk. It said: ‘There can be no doubt that members were recruited to manipulate party processes.’ The RMT union held a strike on the London Underground. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will meet the Pope at the Vatican on 3 April.

President François Hollande of France visited Britain, declining to answer a question at a press conference in a hangar at Brize Norton about his latest mistress, characterising Mr Cameron’s request for EU treaty changes by 2017 as ‘not a priority’, and enjoying with him a lunch of potted shrimps and trout at the Swan public house, Swinbrook, where each was given a cheering half of Hook Norton bitter.