Portrait of the week
Tn three parliamentary by-elections, the 1-Conservatives held Surrey South-West and Stafford with much reduced majorities, Labour held Cynon valley, and the Alliance parties achieved three second places. The Conservatives suffered setbacks in the local government elections, losing most notably Birmingham, cited by ministers as a model council, to Labour. In Liverpool, Labour increased its majority at the expense of the Liberals, and is expected to press ahead with its illegal budget. The Liberal Party in- creased its number of local councillors for the fifth successive year. Mr Ralph Bonner Pink, Conservative MP for Portsmouth South since 1966, died aged 72. Seven fishermen were drowned off Flamborough Head, Yorkshire. The two main rail unions rejected British Rail's four per cent pay offer. The Home Secretary said the Government would support legislation ban- ning the sale of glue to children when it might be used for sniffing. Mr Ian Mac- Gregor, Chairman of the National Coal Board, warned that up to 25 pits would face permanent closure if the miners' strike, then in its ninth week, continued through the summer. Mr Arthur Scargill, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, made his fourth unheeded call in a fortnight to the Nottinghamshire miners to join the strike. Steel workers at Ravenscraig backed the management's decision to bring in coal by road: militant miners threatened to cut off supplies of iron ore to the works. British banks raised their interest rates for the first time in 16 months. A ten day strike at BL's Longbridge plant ended, but disruption by teachers in schools increased. The inquest into the death of WPC Fletcher heard that an official of the Libyan People's Bureau had told a workman that they had guns and would use them.
The Soviet Union announced that it would boycott the Olympic Games in Los Angeles this summer. The organisers of the Games said they hoped Moscow might change its mind, but it was thought more likely that the boycott would be joined by other eastern bloc countries. In Libya, an attack on the heavily fortified compound where Colonel Gaddafi lives was defeated by forces loyal to him. A Canadian soldier with a grudge against parliamentarians opened fire in the Quebec National Assembly, but among the three people he killed there were no politicians. Mrs That- cher invited South Africa's Prime Minister, Mr P. W. Botha, to talks in London in June. Mr Steel said this was 'an insult to Britain's black community'. On his tour of the Far East the Pope mingled with lepers in South Korea, and addressed in Pidgin the tribesmen of Papua New Guinea. Eight British holidaymakers were killed in a coach crash in Majorca. France ended the agree-
ment allowing Britons to visit the country without passports. The Polish authorities detained over 680 people during May Day demonstrations. Napoleon Duarte beat Major Roberto D'Aubuisson in San Salvador's presidential election. Mr Walter Mondale increased his already commanding lead over Senator Gary Hart in the cam- paign for the US Democratic presidential nomination by beating him in the Texas caucuses. Senator Hart refused to concede defeat and subsequently won Ohio and Indiana.
Mrs Kay Weaver, who weighs 20 stone and killed her husband, Kenneth, when she sat on him during a quarrel, escaped prosecution because Pennsylvania police decided the death was accidental. The Queen opened the £460 million Thames Barrier, being greeted by Mr Ken Liv- ingstone with a courtly bow. The Duke of Edinburgh attacked the Austrian govern- ment's plan to build a power station in a Danubian nature reserve. The Duke of Nor- folk attacked the Roman Catholic Church's teaching on birth control. The Duke of Northumberland sold his Shield of Achilles, designed by John Flaxman, for £484,000. Diana Dors died after an opera- tion for cancer. Steve Davis retained his world snooker championship, beating Jimmy White by 18 frames to 16. Liverpool made almost certain of their fifteenth League title by beating Coventry City 5-0. A British football fan was shot dead after an argument in the red light district of Brussels. The Mail on Sunday paid £20,000 for exclusive rights to a story about Britain's first test tube quadruplets, born to an unmarried mother who had already had three children.
'But I thought the Pope always spoke Pidgin English.'
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