Portrait of the week: Andrew Gwynne sacked, Trump saves Prince Harry and a £30m refund over moths

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Andrew Gwynne was sacked as a health minister and suspended from the Labour party for making jokes about a constituent’s hoped-for death, and about Diane Abbott and Angela Rayner. Oliver Ryan, a member of the WhatsApp group where the jokes were shared, had the Labour whip removed and 11 councillors were suspended from the party. Asked about 16,913 of 28,564 medics registering to practise medicine in Britain last year having qualified abroad, Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, said there was ‘no doubt’ that ‘the NHS has become too reliant’ on immigration. The government issued guidance saying that anyone who enters Britain by means of a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship. In the week to 10 February, 210 migrants arrived in small boats. Grenfell Tower, ruined by a fire in 2017 that killed 72 people, will be demolished, the government said.

Ed Miliband, the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, when asked about the government’s support for a third runway at Heathrow, as announced by Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: ‘I am part of the government and I abide by collective responsibility.’ But he added: ‘We have carbon budgets in which any of those plans have to sit.’ The Bank of England reduced interest rates from 4.75 to 4.5 per cent but also halved its growth forecast for 2025 to just 0.75 per cent, with inflation forecast to rise to 3.75 per cent. The bank’s Governor, Andrew Bailey, said: ‘We have seen an increase in public-sector employment. We haven’t seen a commensurate increase in measured public-sector output.’

Kim Leadbeater MP, who sponsored the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, suggested that each killing would not have to be approved by a High Court judge after all, but by some panel appointed by a Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission. The High Court ruled that the Metropolitan Police could not dismiss officers simply by removing their vetting clearance, which denied them a chance to defend themselves. Hundreds of tractors blocked Whitehall as farmers protested against changes to inheritance tax. A car crashed from a bridge on to two tracks of railway in Salford, blocking the line between Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Piccadilly. The High Court ruled that a couple who bought a house in Ladbroke Grove, west London, for £32.5 million can have almost all of their money back because it was infested with moths.

Abroad

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, issued a statement saying: ‘If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon – the ceasefire will be terminated, and the IDF will return to intense fighting.’ He was taking a cue from President Donald Trump of the United States, who had said he thought the ceasefire should end if the hostages were not returned by 15 February. After 21 hostages had been released under the ceasefire, Hamas had said it was postponing the next scheduled release. The last three released had been shockingly emaciated. Mr Trump had earlier said that ‘the Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting’.

Mr Trump ordered a 25 per cent tariff on all imports of steel and aluminium. He signed an executive order imposing sanctions on individuals who assist International Criminal Court investigations of American citizens or allies. He signed regulations against transgender women competing in women’s sports. Asked if he would have the Duke of Sussex deported, he said: ‘I’ll leave him alone. He’s got enough problems with his wife. She’s terrible.’ Lord Mandelson presented his credentials as the new British ambassador to Washington and said that his past criticisms of Mr Trump were ‘ill-judged and wrong’. A consortium led by Elon Musk offered $97.4 billion for OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Neither the United States nor Britain signed an international agreement on artificial intelligence at a Paris summit.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania disconnected their electricity networks from the Russian power grid; Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad was left cut off from the main Russian grid. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that the Russian army had ‘brought back North Korean soldiers’ to combat in Kursk. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, protestors set fire to the former family home of Sheikh Hasina, the deposed prime minister. A Bryan Adams concert in Perth, Australia, was cancelled because a fatberg had blocked a main sewer.      CSH