Potrait of the week

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The government cancelled a vote setting a timetable for a Bill to reform the House of Lords after dozens of Conservative MPs were ready to rebel. The Bill, which gained a second reading thanks to Labour, was brought in at the insistence of the Liberal Democrats. Six men from the West Midlands were charged with terrorism. President François Hollande of France visited David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, who, standing next to the 5ft 7in leader, said: ‘We both want to stand tall in the world.’ The unseeded Jonathan Marray of Britain and Frederik Nielsen of Denmark won the Wimbledon men’s doubles. Roger Federer of Switzerland won the men’s title, beating Andy Murray, the first British finalist since Bunny Austin in 1938.

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Paul Tucker, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, told the Commons Treasury Select Committee that no government official or minister in 2008 had asked him to ‘lean on’ Barclays or any other bank in 2008 to lower their London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) submissions. Asked if he could be confident that abuse of Libor was not continuing, Mr Tucker replied: ‘I can’t be confident of anything after learning of this cesspit.’ Bob Diamond, who resigned as Barclays chief executive over the scandal voluntarily relinquished bonuses worth up to £20 million. The Serious Fraud Office began a formal investigation into the Libor scandal. Eva Rausing, married to the heir to the Tetra Pak drink-carton enterprise, was found dead in her Chelsea home. Marks & Spencer reported that like-for-like sales in Britain fell by 2.8 per cent between April and June. Pedestrians walking under a railway bridge at Taunton were startled by sudden amplified wailing designed to scare away pigeons as part of a £300,000 scheme; the pigeons stayed put.