Portrait of the week
ir John Betjeman, Poet Laureate, died
in Cornwall at the age of 78, and was buried at St Enodoc's church, Trebetherick. A Commons committee ex- empted from tax a £6,163 expenses allowance for MPs without troubling to debate the measure. Mr Neil Kinnock denied reports of a mood of despair among Labour MPs. On learning that he would be prosecuted for an alleged indecent assault against a policeman, the Conservative MP Dr Keith Hampson declared his innocence and said he would defend himself in the courts. In Ulster, the IRA murdered two soldiers and two policemen, and injured 11 other people. Mr James Prior, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, hinted that he might soon return to the backbenches. The rate of inflation remained at 5.2 per cent. British Leyland said it would close its Bathgate plant and sell Jaguar. The Na- tional Union of Teachers told its members at 224 schools to begin a series of three-day strikes. The Government moved to hold the Portsmouth South by-election on the same day as the European elections, 14 June, on- ly six weeks after the death of the sitting member. Divisions within the trade union movement were emphasised when Mr Len Murray dissociated the TUC from a strike in support of the miners organised by the TUC regional organisation in Yorkshire. The Home Secretary announced the forma- tion of special police teams to combat the
Y intimidation of working miners and their families. He referred, among other barbaric incidents, to the death of a kitten. Mr Peter Shore, shadow trade and industry secretary, criticised both sides for total in- transigence and said the failure of the Na- tional Union of Mineworkers to hold a na- tional strike ballot had been disastrous for miners' unity. Mr Arthur Scargill returned from a meeting in Paris claiming the sup- port of miners' unions from 49 countries. Efforts to get the two sides to talk to each other suffered repeated setbacks. A meeting was at length arranged but broke down. Wednesday's business in the Commons was lost because Tuesday's debate on the aboli- tion of elections to the metropolitan coun- cils had not finished.
In the Gulf war attacks by Iran and Iraq on neutral shipping caused increasing alarm: Saudi Arabia said it would use its air force to repel Iranian attacks. Fears grew for the health of the Soviet scientist Dr
, on hunger strike since 2 May in Gorky, whose demand that his wife Andrei Sakharov,
be allowed to travel to the West for medical treatment has been rejected. The Labour and Conservative parties launched their campaigns for the elections to the European Parliament. Bombay was afflicted by bloody riots between Hindus . and Moslems. Senora Isabel Peron went from Madrid to Buenos Aires to talk to President
Alfonsin. Poland reluctantly withdrew from the Olympic Games. The Soviet Union said that despite sending no com- petitors to the Games, it would send 200 of- ficials. It expelled a British diplomat from Moscow in retaliation for the expulsion of a KGB controller, Mr Arkadi Gouk, from London. Mr Rodney Pereira and his wife Gail, an Indian couple who have lived in a Hampshire village since 1978, escaped being expelled from Britain when a Home Office decision against them was overturned by the Minister of State.
The Tate Gallery announced that Mr Peter Palumbo, the famous property developer who has made outspoken attacks on the way the Gallery is run, would not after all become chairman of its trustees. Mr Patrick Harrington, a National Front activist, was prevented by other students at the North London Polytechnic from attending philosophy lectures. The authorities at Oxford University declined to pay much attention to a survey suggesting that women undergraduates were subject to sexual harassment. The Church of Scotland voted to allow a man who murdered his mother to continue his training to become a minister. Two British women were reported to be pregnant, having agreed to take part in a 'womb-leasing' scheme. The Warnock Committee is expected to recommend that such schemes be made illegal. Mr Greg Dyke, regarded as the saviour of TV-am, resigned from the station over proposed staff cuts. David Gower was made England's captain for the three one-day matches against the West Indies. Lord Althorn tried but failed to mark his twen- tieth birthday by de-bagging a disc jockey.
' AJSG `My client claims he fell off the back of a lorry driver, m'Iud.'
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