PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
'Let's hope it's just election fever.'
The City scandal surrounding the brew- ing company Guinness deepened. Morgan Grenfell resigned as the company's mer- chant bankers, over allegations that it had helped Guinness secretly buy 2.1 million of its own shares. Mr Roger Seelig, a director of Morgan Grenfell, also resigned and the future of Mr Ernest Saunders, chairman of Guinness, was put in doubt. At Barlinnie Jail in Scotland, prisoners rioted and took three warders hostage. Government docu- ments released under the 30-year rule threw new light on Sir Anthony Eden's handling of the Suez crisis in 1956, but stopped short of confirming collusion be- tween Britain, France and Israel in the affair. In a letter to President Eisenhower, Sir Anthony compared Nasser to Mussoli- ni, and it was revealed that he had felt that the Government should have resigned over the issue. Lord Stockton, who as Harold Macmillan supported Eden's disastrous offensive, was buried after a private funer- al at the church near his house in Sussex. His grandson and heir, Alexander, re- vealed that Lord Stockton's dying words had been, 'I think I will go to'sleep now.' Sir Woodrow Wyatt, chairman of the Tote, and Field Marshall Sir Edwin Bramall, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, were made life peers in the New Year's honours list, while the principal actors in the television series Yes Minister, Paul Edding- ton and Nigel Hawthorne, were made CBEs. Violence marred a number of New Year celebrations. In the worst incident, 300 youths rioted in Lincoln.
THERE was also New Year's violence abroad. Thirteen people were killed and 1,500 injured as celebrating Filipinos took to the streets, and a further five were killed and 100 arrested in Sydney. Students in China continued to rally in support of democracy despite government bans, threats and to deliberate flooding of Tiananmen Square in Peking, where pro- testers gathered on the ice which formed. Ninety-six people were killed in a sus- pected arson attack on a hotel whose staff were disaffected in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. Forty-nine people were kil- led, but two survived, when a Boeing 707 crashed in the Ivory Coast, and there were nine deaths when a New York to Boston express train crashed near Baltimore. Pres- ident Reagan went into hospital for minor prostate surgery and, in a routine check- up, four benign growths were removed from his colon. A Senate report which would have exonerated the President of any knowledge of the Contra link in the Iranian arms scandal was suppressed by Democrats. The US administration im- posed huge import taxes of up to 200 per cent on goods imported from the EEC. There was renewed fighting in Chad when government forces captured the oasis town of Fada from Libyan-backed rebels. Li- byan bombers responded by attacking the government-held town of Arada. In South Africa the Reverend Allan Hendrickse, who is one of only two non-white members of President Botha's Cabinet, led 300 followers onto a whites-only beach in Port Elizabeth and went swimming. Mr Gor- bachev refused to broadcast a New Year Message to America and there were US protests when President Reagan's message to the Soviets was jammed. In West Germany there was some confusion after a television station accidentally broadcast Chancellor Kohl's 1986 New Year message instead of the 1987 version. RJM
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