PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Lord Tebbit attacked Government policy on Europe to loud applause at the Conser- vative Party conference. He said, among other things, 'I hope, Prime Minister, you will stand by your Chancellor. After all, it was not Norman Lamont's decision to enter the ERM.' He also asked the conference hall, 'Do you want to be citizens of a Euro- pean Union?' He was greeted by a roar of `No'. The day before, the pound had plunged to 2.4 deutschmarks and the Foot- sie share index by 103 points in one day, the biggest fall since the crash of October 1987. Cutbacks on public service spending were in prospect. One of the favoured targets of the Treasury was the extension of the Jubilee line to the Docklands in London, regarded as a lifeline to the severely trou- bled Canary Wharf development; neverthe- less Texaco announced that it would be moving its British headquarters to the com- plex. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, attacked the manner in which Britain is ruled: ordinary people were at the mercy of 'unstoppable surges of speculative capital' and 'faceless people in Whitehall, the EC, international business cartels and bureaucracies'. Lord Hanson launched a £708 million takeover bid for Ranks Hovis McDougall, which owns Mother's Pride bread and Bisto, among other things. A Scottish court annulled the
marriage of an Asian woman who had gone through an arranged wedding at the age of 14. Mr Kenneth Clarke, the Home Secre- tary, refused to recommend a posthumous pardon for Derek Bentley, who was hanged for the murder of a policeman in 1952. Baroness de Stempel wrote in a letter to a newspaper that her three and a half years in prison for stealing half a million pounds from her aged aunt was 'an absolutely fasci- nating experience which I would not have missed for anything'; she complained chiefly of 'constant piped pop music'. Mr Malcolm Rifkind, the Defence Secretary, was photographed loading a mortar into a firing tube upside down during a test exer- cise. Mr Peter Lilley, the Social Security Secretary, was found for the third year run- ning to be the least recognised member of the Cabinet. Denholm Elliott, the actor, died of Aids, aged 70.
MORE than 200 people were killed when an El Al Boeing cargo jumbo jet crashed into a block of flats in a poor part of Ams- terdam shortly after takeoff. Its two star- board engines had caught fire and fallen off. In Brazil 111 prisoners were killed in the crushing of a jail uprising. Children in Sarajevo will be dying of starvation within four weeks, according to Sir Donald Ache-
son, a UN special envoy to Bosnia. Serbian forces took Bosanski Brod, a strategic town held for months by Muslim and Croatian troops. The despatch of 1,800 British troops to the region, announced in August, is to be delayed till November. President Chissano of Mozambique and Mr Afonso Dhlakam, the leader of the right-wing Ren- amo rebels, signed a peace treaty to end 16 years of civil war. In Angola, Dr Jonas Sav- imbi contemplated re-engaging in civil war after election results went against his Unita party. Candidates in the Kuwaiti elections found that the going rate for buying a vote was £400. Mr Ross Perot announced that he would after all be contesting the United States presidency. President Idriss Beby of Chad visited a baby who had been born with the name of the Prophet Mohammed mysteriously inscribed on her arm. Mr Akio Morita, the man who gave the world the Sony Walkman, was given an honorary knighthood by the Queen. Australia announced that it would no longer permit its people to be awarded knighthoods, or any other British honours for that matter. Bill 'Tiger' O'Reilly, the great Australian spinner, died, aged 86. A man in Washing ton, who had fallen asleep in a large dust- bin after drinking, was crushed to death when the bin was emptied into a dustcart.
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