Week in pictures

The Bank of England shocked the country by slashing 1.5 percentage points off interest rates - the largest cut it has made since it was granted independence in 1997 - as it tries to ward off a deep recession. Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters

Britain will suffer the deepest recession among the EU's mature economies, with a contraction of 1% next year and growth of only 0.4% in 2010, according to the European commission Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP

The Bank of England's monetary policy committee cut interest rates by half a percentage point to 1.5% – their lowest level since the central bank was founded more than 300 years ago Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters

It was revealed that directors of the state-backed Lloyds Banking group were sounding out shareholders about a change in its executive remuneration plans Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

1,263,158 frontline RBS staff (average salary: £19,000) Photograph: Shaun Curry/AFP

The prime minister had hoped to use the keynote speech of his trip to the Gulf states to restate calls on banks to ease lending conditions for families and businesses. But a senior banker travelling with Brown's party, David Hodgkinson, chief operating officer at HSBC, overshadowed the speech by suggesting that banks would not make mortgages cheaper even with a cut in interest rates Photograph: Ali Haider/EPA

Reporting a 47% tumble in Ryanair's first-half profits to €215m (£170m), Michael O'Leary said more loss-making airlines would go bust over the coming months and predicted the industry in Europe would eventually be dominated by four main players, including Ryanair Photograph: Johan Nilsson/EPA

Marks & Spencer chief Sir Stuart Rose called on the government to do all it could to restore consumer confidence as the high street giant unveiled dire Christmas trading, the closure of 27 stores and confirmed more than 1,200 staff were to be axed in a bid to cut costs Photograph: Newscast

The oil price will shoot back through $100 a barrel as soon as economic conditions return to normal, and will break through $200 threshold by 2030, say officials at the International Energy Agency Photograph: Pablo Krisch/AP

Department store group John Lewis is to open its first store outside the UK with a £40m investment in a new outlet in Dublin Photograph: PR

Profits at Toyota are on course for their biggest annual fall in 13 years after a drop of almost 70% in the latest quarter, the Japanese carmaker said Photograph: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP