The Week
The High Court ruled that Mr Mulley, the Education Minister, had 'misdirected himself' in the matter of the Tameside Council. The Council won the day against the Government's attempts to force it to make its schools comprehensive. Mr Foot had a rough ride in the Commons, attacked by the opposition, the Nationalists and his own Left. Two Scotch Labour MPs, Messrs Sillars and Robertson, finally severed their connexion with the Labour Party, theoretically ending the Government's majority, but the interesting Dock Work Regulation Bill finally squeezed through, by three votes.
War did not break out between Greece and Turkey despite the Turkish exploration of the Aegean, nor between Kenya and Uganda, with whom Great Britain broke off diplomatic relations. The Americans evacuated 300 people from Beirut, where 150 bodies were found in a shelter at the Tel al-Zaatar camp. Colonel Gaddafi accused Egypt of planning to invade Libya. The Sunday Times announced that one of its journalists, Jon Swain, had disappeared in Ethiopia, .where two senior officers were shot. A speaker at the International Conference of Transcultural Psychiatry (sic) at Bradford suggested that racial hostility was psychologically good for blacks.
Mr Edward Heath was interviewed on television and found it impossible to say anything complimentary about Mrs Thatcher. Mr Kenneth Marks of the Department of the Environment suggested that there should be lessons on Parliament at Winchester, after the Headmaster's recent behaviour at a motorway enquiry. Mr Arthur Scargill's behaviour in disciplining members of his mineworkers' union was ruled a contempt of court. Lord Feather, former SecretaryGeneral of the TUC, died.
Mr Tanaka, the former Prime Minister of Japan, was arrested on a charge of bribery and corruption. Mr Takeo M iki, the present prime minister, said that 'the political situation has reached an extremely grave phase'. Viktor Korchnoi, the Russian chess grandmaster, sought political asylum in Holland. An English curate was gaoled for 30 days in Yugoslavia after he had become involved in a fracas over a lady with whom he was travelling. A large area near Milan was cordoned off when poisonous defoliant escaped from a chemical plant.
Sir Richard Marsh, the retiring Chairman of British Rail, claimed that civil servants dealing with the railways were so intensely anti-rail that he could only think that something unpleasant had happened to their mothers in trains. He claimed that even with cuts in the network and of manpower the railways could only survive with a massive
injection of capital. Mr Serbian of Guildford said that the Liberal boycott of Scarborough, because it has refused a conference of homosexualists, would damage the party by implying that they were associated with such people. Mr Norman Scott's reaction was not recorded. The coffins containing the bodies, of Callan and the other British mercenaries shot in Angola returned to England to be kicked and spat at by workers at Heathrovv.
England lost the Test Match and the series to the West Indians, but regained a modicum of self-respect. Mr Muldoon of New Zealand said that his country would continue to play anyone at games, despite the trouble at the Olympics. In Montreal Brendan Foster was beaten into third place after starting at even money in the 10,000 metres.
But the Olympics were more entertaining because of what was happening off the field. The Duke of Edinburgh was repeatedlY asked to prove his identity by security guards. An unfortunate weight-lifter, the only Iraqi at the Games, was summoned home as part of the boycott. He stopped in London and after drowning his sorrows lifted an undemanding 18 ounces of clothes in Marks and Spencer. A British swimmer. Christine Jarvis, eloped briefly with her American coach. Her mother said, 'He maY be married already but the Victorian age IS over', it was not clear whether it was the prospect of her as a mother-in-law which drove him back to his wife. Montreal bookstalls reported a boom in the sale of pornography, mainly to Russian athletes. And a Montreal medical officer said that there had been a five-fold increase in venereal disease as a result of 'more people coming together and interacting'.
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