PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
'Darlings! You were divine!'
Mr Edward Heath launched a stinging personal attack on the Prime Minister accusing her of 'misleading the public' over the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament. Mr Michael Heseltine also joined Tory critics of Mrs Thatcher's stance on European affairs; she counter- attacked by declaring herself to be a 'European idealist'. The Government was defeated in the House of Lords over the timetable for bringing water purity levels up to EEC standards. Britain was outvoted 11-1 in Brussels over new health warnings on cigarette packets. Mr Neil Kinnock suggested for the first time that a future Labour government would not say whether it would use nuclear weapons as a last resort or not. Dr David Owen's SDP effectively abandoned its claim to be tre- ated as a national political force when it announced that in future it would be operating on a 'guerrilla' basis. The High Court allowed the Government to proceed with the distribution of poll tax leaflets. A 'sit-in' of actors at a site in Southwark prevented developers from starting build- ing work over the excavated remains of the Rose Theatre, where Shakespeare himself is known to have acted. Most of London's Underground, bus and train services came to a halt for a day as crews struck for higher wages. Just before the inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster began 300 hooligans — including five at Hillsborough — were arrested on the last full day of the football season. Eight explorers reached the North Pole on skis after a journey of four weeks; the expedition's leader, Mr Robert Swan, became the first man to have walked to both ends of the Earth. Mr David Steel announced that he would be standing at the European elections for the Central Region of Italy. A theatrical agent's for- mer mistress lost a High Court 'palimony' case — showing that this Californian con- cept has not taken root in England. The Australian cricket team lost matches against both Sussex and Worcestershire.
MIKHAIL Gorbachev went to Peking for the first summit between the Soviet Union and China for 30 years. In a serious loss of face for the Chinese leadership a crowd estimated at around 200,000 massed in Tienanmen Square forcing Mr Gorbachev to enter the Great Hall of the People through a back door. The Soviet Union announced that it would unilaterally with-
draw 500 short-range nuclear missiles from Eastern Europe; the US Secretary of State, James Baker, said that it was 'a good step, but it's a very small step'. After the result of the elections in Panama were declared null and void, more US troops were moved into their bases there. Carlos Menem, a flamboyant Peronist populist, won the election for the presidency of Argentina• Mr Jack Mann, a retired RAF pilot, was feared to have been kidnapped in Beirut!. The Israeli defence minister Yitzhak Rabin warned Palestinians that if they did not accept the offer of elections made to them then he would order the military to use 'whatever force is needed' to put down the intifada. In run-off elections in the Soviet Union conservative candidates were again said to be doing badly. Mr Masayoshi Ito, one of the few top Japanese politicians not tainted by the Recruit Cosmos scandal, declined the position of prime minister leaving an ever-deepening political vacuum. The US courts forced Minorco, a South African controlled investment com- pany, to abandon its £3.5 billion bid for Consolidated Gold Fields, the British min- ing house. A Picasso self-portrait sold in
New York for $47.85 million. MST
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