PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`I didn't know you were interested in politics.'
mr Jeffrey Archer resigned his post as deputy chairman of the Conservative party after a Sunday newspaper alleged he had offered money to a prostitute to go abroad. Mr Archer strongly denied that he had ever met her, or had been involved with any prostitute, saying he had resigned only for an error of judgment in attempting to pay the money to avoid a scandal. He blamed the News of the World for its reprehenisble role in the episode. Mrs Thatcher, who had been criticised by some Tories for her choice of deputy chairman, decided not to fill the vacant post. Britain expelled the Syrian ambassador after an Old Bailey court heard that a Jordanian terrorist, Nizar Hindawi, received assist- ance and support from the ambassador in London. Hindawi was jailed for 45 years for trying to blow up an El Al jumbo jet using his pregnant girl friend to carry the bomb onto the plane. The headmistress of Sudbury Infants School, Maureen McGol- drick, remained suspended from her post by Brent council despite a ruling in the High Court that the council had acted improperly in suspending her for racist remarks she allegedly made to an educa- tion official. A woman whose breasts were removed when a doctor incorrectly di- agnosed cancer was awarded £98,000 com- pensation, and Kingsley Amis won the Booker prize for his novel The Old Devils. John Braine, the novelist, and Eddie War- ing, the Rugby League commentator, died. The long awaited de-regulation of the London Stock market — the Big Bang --- was marred by several computer break- downs.
THE Soviet Union expelled five American diplomats from Moscow and also withdrew the services of 260 Soviet domestic staff from the embassy in the last of a long series of tit-for-tat moves between the two super- powers. Colonel Gaddafi appeared• on Irish television and seemed to give support to the IRA and to Mr Charles Haughey. The former emperor of the Central African Republic, Jean-Bedel Bokassa, left exile in France claiming he couldn't face another European winter, and returned home where he was promptly arrested. He faces charges of murder, theft, and cannibalism. Six more miners were killed in a South African gold mine, the second such disas- ter in a month. In Geneva the Internation- al Red Cross voted to expel South Africa for its apartheid policies, and South Africa expelled 15 of the organisation's Swiss workers in protest. A three-week-old Thai Airlines A300 Airbus plunged 25,000 feet when a bulkhead ruptured. The pilot suc- cessfully landed the plane at Osaka in Japan. England lost the opening first class match of their Australian tour in Queens- land by five wickets, and Ian Botham announced he would no longer be available for winter tours. Nigel Mansell failed to win the World Formula One championship when one of his car's tyres burst in the Australian Grand Prix. SJRR
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