PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Dr Richard Livsey won the Brecon and Radnor by-election for the Liberals, beating the Labour candidate by 559 votes, and the Conservative by 3,000. Mr Kin- flock appeared to blame his party's defeat on the speeches of Arthur Scargill to the last conference of the National Union of Mineworkers, which broke in two after the Nottinghamshire Area refused to accept rule changes which strengthen Mr Scargill's policy of democratic centralism. He was confirmed in his office for life. The Coal Board announced that it would negotiate with the schismatics of Nottingham, also that it was considering the closure of a further 30 million tons of uneconomic capacity. The Government's loss of Brecon and Radnor, where the previous member had had a majority of more than 10,000 votes, led to great excitement among the chattering classes. The Chancellor appeared to say that the Government was still on course, but that this was a quite different course to the one he had pre- viously boasted of keeping. Mrs Thatcher told the Sun that she was extremely irri- tated by being offered Perrier water when there was a perfectly good British alterna- tive. She also dismissed stories of cabinet opposition to further spending cuts with the observation that the British people 'do not want a government of flexitoys'. The Bill to abolish the GLC finally got through Parliament and the Lords voted to make all corporal punishment in schools illegal.
THE American government offered a $500,000 reward for the capture of the Shi'ite terrorists responsible for kidnap- ping the TWA airliner. President Reagan denounced Iran, North Korea, Nicaragua, Libya and Cuba for their 'fanatical hatred of the United States' but his plan for an international boycott of Beirut airport attracted little support. David Stockman, the President's budget director, resigned. The two men responsible for forging and selling the Hitler Diaries to Stern magazine were jailed for between four and five years; and a Liverpool fan who had been part of a crowd that looted a hot-dog stand outside the Heysel stadium in Brussels was jailed for a year. The Rhodesian elections were a triumph for Robert Mugabe, who proposed to celebrate his victory by abo- lishing the opposition. Princess Michael of Kent was discovered by the News of the World to have enjoyed a clandestine friendship with an American millionaire, but this seemed not to have diminished her popularity. She was cheered by a large crowd at Wimbledon, where the men's singles were won by an unseeded German, Boris Becker, who is ten months 'younger than the 18-year-old victor of the junior championships. Ruth Lawrence, aged 13, was awarded a first in Mathematics at Oxford after two years' study. Mrs Alma Bradley, 34, told the police that she had been 'tipsy' on the night when an alsation dog savaged and partially ate her 11-week- old son in her bed beside her as she slept. The will of an elderly widow demanded that her seven red setters be put down.
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