Portrait of the week: Sunak in No. 10, pasta gets pricier and Russia hits Ukraine’s energy grid

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Rishi Sunak, aged 42, became Prime Minister. At the weekend Boris Johnson had flown back from a holiday in the Dominican Republic in response to the resignation of Liz Truss. She said she could not ‘deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative party’. The 1922 Committee devised a hurdle of 100 nominations for any MP to be considered as leader, with secret ballots of MPs and, if two candidates remained, an online vote by party members. It was thought that if Mr Johnson secured 100 votes, the membership would elect him. At 9 p.m. on Sunday, the day before nominations closed, he withdrew from the contest. Next day, a minute before nominations closed, Penny Mordaunt withdrew. So Mr Sunak won. Political commentators noted that Mr Sunak was a Hindu of Indian heritage. In a short, stilted speech on becoming party leader, he said: ‘I pledge that I will serve you with integrity and humility and I will work day in, day out to deliver for the British people.’ As Prime Minister, after kissing hands with the King, he said of his predecessor’s six weeks in office that ‘some mistakes were made’. He added: ‘I have been elected as leader of my party, and your Prime Minister, in part to fix them.’ He promised stability and confidence, integrity, professionalism and accountability.

Jeremy Hunt remained Chancellor of the Exchequer, James Cleverly Foreign Secretary, and Ben Wallace Defence Secretary, but Jacob Rees-Mogg, the first to go, as Business Secretary, was replaced by Grant Shapps. Suella Braverman was reappointed Home Secretary less than a week after she resigned; Penny Mordaunt was reappointed Leader of the House. Dominic Raab returned as Deputy Prime Minister and as Justice Secretary. Thérèse Coffey went to Environment and Steve Barclay returned to Health. Michael Gove was made Levelling Up Secretary. Oliver Dowden became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Nadhim Zahawi was made a minister without portfolio and Sir Gavin Williamson another. Simon Hart became chief whip. The autumn statement was moved from 31 October to 17 November.

The past 12 months had seen a 17 per cent price rise for the 30 cheapest groceries, in a survey by the Office for National Statistics; vegetable oil had gone up 65 per cent, pasta 60 per cent and tea 46 per cent, but sugar had become a little cheaper. In England, the number of people testing positive for Covid rose to one in 30 by 10 October (from one in 35 a week earlier) and in Scotland to one in 35 (from one in 50), according to the Office for National Statistics. A Channel migrant, aged 16, one of 30 from Albania who had evaded detection, walked into a woman’s house at Aycliffe, a village close to Dover, and asked for a lift to Manchester; police detained him in the bedroom. That week 1,030 Channel migrants in small boats had been detected.

Abroad

Russia launched new strikes against Ukraine’s energy grid. Ukraine asked refugees abroad not to return till after the winter. The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, inspected two locations at Ukraine’s request, after Russia said Ukraine might set off a dirty bomb containing radioactive material. UN experts told the BBC they believe Russian forces deliberately cut off the water to Mykolaiv in April; it has not yet been restored. Ukraine accused Russia of ‘artificial delays’ to inspections of 165 grain ships wanting to carry exports. A woman in the village of Betara in Indonesia was eaten by a python.

Xi Jinping was, as expected, endorsed by the Communist party congress for a third term as China’s ruler. Strange film footage showed China’s former leader Hu Jintao, who was sitting next to Mr Xi, being led out of a session of the congress. A fire raged for days on the slopes of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Amou Haji, who had refused to wash for more than half a century, fell ill after villagers in Dejgah, in the Iranian province of Farsat, persuaded him to have a bath, and died aged 94.

In an operation in Nablus against the recently formed Lion’s Den group, which had killed an Israeli soldier this month, Israeli troops killed five Palestinians. Protests continued in Iran against the compulsory wearing of the hijab; 244 protestors had been killed according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, said that she had ‘had my genealogy done a couple years ago’ and discovered she was 43 per cent Nigerian. Six new species of rain frog were discovered on the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorean Andes. CSH