Portrait of the week
Aeerie silence settled over the House of Commons in the case of Mr Stancu Papusoiu, a young Romanian who smuggl- ed himself into Britain, requested political asylum and was then packed off, struggling and protesting, on a plane returning to Bucharest. For six days the matter was not mentioned, until Labour MP David Win- flock asked Mr William Whitelaw about the case at Question Time on Tuesday. The Home Secretary, backing Mr David Wad- dington, the junior minister who actually took the decision to deport the hapless Mr Papasoiu to certain imprisonment back in Romania, repeated that he was not a 'ge- nuine' political refugee. A spokesman for the Home Office took the trouble to deny that he.was 'frogmarched in handcuffs' to the plane, though it was admitted that he was attended not by police officers but by employees of the Securicor company. Less sympathy was evoked by the plight of Mr Peter Jay, obliged to resign as chief ex- ecutive of the unsuccessful commercial breakfast television company, TV-am, in the face of falling viewing figures. Staff, in- cluding Miss Anna Ford and Miss Angela Rippon among the station's 'Famous Five' presenters, demonstrated unavailingly in support of Mr Jay, who was replaced tem- porarily by Conservative MP Jonathan Aitken, with Lord Marsh becoming chair- man. Mr Aitken promised changes to make TV-am more competitive with the BBC's breakfast show — widely interpreted to mean that Mr David Frost would be drop- ped. Mr Frost, at the height of the crisis, took time off to marry Lady Carina Fitz- alan-Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, and honeymoon in Venice. The first day of spring arrived, ushered in by cold and blustery weather.
IFrance, Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy was confirmed in office, immediately reshuffling the Cabinet and reducing it from 34 to 15 members. There are only two Communist ministers left in the Cabinet, charged with responsibility for transport and professional training. The St Patrick's Day parade in New York proceeded much as usual, despite the disapproval of leading Irish-Americans of the position of honour accorded to a IRA stalwart, Mr Michael (not Martin, as stated in this column last week) Flannery as grand marshal. The much-postponed Arab League delegation finally arrived in London for talks with the Foreign Secretary and Mrs Thatcher, but it was led by King Hussein of Jordan rather than the King of Morocco, with a US-based university professor representing the Palestinians instead of a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, as was originally intended. In Israel, the ruling Likud coalition led by Mr Menachem Begin was stunned by the result of a secret ballot of the Knesset which elected the Labour Party's Chaim Herzog as the State's nex,t president in preference to Mr Begin s nominee, which meant that seven coalition members anonymously defected. Marshal Ustinov, the Soviet Defence Minister, cut short a visit to Budapest amid rumours of political developments in Moscow. The European Monetary System, the so-called Snake, was saved from collapse by an ad' justment of currencies agreed under the chairmanship of Sir Geoffrey Howe. In Nicaragua, the left-wing government ar pealed to the United Nations over a right" wing counter-revolution.
T ord Shawcross joined the SDP, 1-4 although opinion polls showed that the Party's candidate in the Darlington hY" election was trailing behind his Labour or ponent. Mr Derek Mahoney was freed frotn jail by the Court of Appeal after spefldni! nearly a year behind bars for refusing tv, disclose the whereabouts of the supPoseu Glastonbury Cross, said to have bee!' buried with King Arthur. The court said there was no point in continuing_ ,the sentence for contempt, because m.ri Mahoney was prepared to 'stay unti Domesday' rather than give up the cross.
Rob James, 36, one of Britain's foremost long-distance yachtsmen and husband of yachtswoman Dame Naomi Jarnes, drowned when he fell overboard from the trimaran Colt Cars GB outside Salconlhe harbour. An American, Wayne Dick1n5°11. single-handedly sailed his eight-foot b°84 across the Atlantic in 142 days. The fannhes of two Scottish schoolboys who refused t° accept the infliction of the tawse as punish" ment were awarded £12,000 by the Elir°- pean Court of Human Rights. A Ycnirig man, three times identified as the bodY found on a Scottish mountain, turned LIP alive and well as preparations for Ins funeral were put in hand: 'There has been terrible mix-up,' said Stephen Clunas. 11' former Bishop of Edinburgh, the Rt Rev Kenneth Warner, 92, was found dead irt,a septic tank, apparently having fallen in while trying to rescue a neighbour's ci°g' No security leak occurred, stated the Ministry of Defence, from a sexual e° counter between Sir James Dunnett, the Ministry's former Permanent SecretarY, and a transvestite called Vikki de LambraY, aka David Lloyd-Gibbon, who admitted an affair with a Soviet naval captain, Anat.°IY Zotov, expelled last December for 5PY1,ng; Doctors at Coventry and Warwick Hospital, turned off the life support system. murder suspect James Davey, injured ID 4 struggle at a police station nine daYspiP earlier.
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