Portrait of the week
Against the advice of shop stewards, a majority of British Leyland's 58,000 car workers voted to end their strike and accept a 3.8 per cent increase in basic rates. They were persuaded by an improved offer on bonus payments and the withdrawal of a letter threatening them with dismissal without notice or compensation. Mr Terence Duffy, president of the AUEW, urged his members to 'go back for England'; Mr Alex Kitson, acting general secretary of the TGWU, made no clear recommendation. Earlier, talks at ACAS had failed to avert the strike; the Government had refused to intervene (an emergency debate in the Commons was attended by fewer than a hundred MPs); and an offer of assistance from the Bishop of Birmingham was not taken up. Path of Peace, a racehorse sponsored by BL, started coughing with a virus infection.
At the CBI conference it was said that no one in the country should get a pay rise, and Mr Norman Tebbit, the Employment Secretary, proposed a 1 per cent cut in wages. Firemen were awarded a 10 per cent pay increase (recommended government limit 4 per cent).
The US Senate approved, by a narrow majority, the sale of five AWACS radar aircraft — plus Sidewinder missiles, aerial tankers and ground radar stations — to Saudi Arabia for $8,500 million. Of the 40 senators who were persuaded by President Reagan to drop their opposition to the deal, it fell to the Jewish Senator from Maine, Bill Cohen, to give the clinching vote which ensured the sale would go ahead. Saudi Arabia, which already leases AWACS planes, will not take delivery of its first purchase until 1985. Crown Prince Fahd, having given President Mubarak of Egypt his tentative support, received Lord Carrington in Riyadh to discuss their Middle East peace plans. Saudi Arabia announced a cut in oil production after OPEC agreed to hold the price of oil until the end of 1982. The stability of petrol prices, already up nearly 30 per cent this year, was less certain.
Russia apologised for violating Swedish territorial waters when one of its submarines went aground south of Karlskrona naval base. The submarine was later refloated but the career of its captain was probably damaged beyond repair. In Chad President Goukouni, fearing he might be ousted by his pro-Libyan foreign minister, Ahmat Acyl, demanded the withdrawal of Gaddafi's troops from his country, and then decided it was safe to go to Paris.
The Spanish Parliament voted to apply for membership of NATO. Mr MoussaviKhamenehi, an interior decorator and brother of the president, became the ninth prime minister of Iran in three years, as the number of executions reported in the country since mid-July rose to 2,205. The Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda were given independence. Jamaica broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba.
The SDP-Liberal Alliance continued to gain support in council by-elections. Mrs Anne Sofer won the first seat on the GLC for the Social Democrats, and the Liberals took 12 seats elsewhere. Mr Eric Ogden became the 21st Labour MP to join the Social Democrats. At the end of the Parliamentary session 14 Bills were given the royal assent. The House of Lords decided to allow the passage of the British Nationality Bill without insisting on further safeguards, but incurred the wrath of at least one Conservative MP by giving protection to redshanks and curlews in the Wildlife and Countryside Bill. A Bill for the trade unions was the highlight of the Queen's Speech. Mr Enoch Powell, having been invited by some Conservative MPs to rejoin the party, said that the Pope's visit to Britain next year was a symbol of the nation's decline.
Mr Nicholas Reed, secretary of EXIT, the voluntary euthanasia society, was sent to prison for two and a half years, convicted of aiding and abetting suicides. Nearly 2,000 more people seeking help towards self-deliverance had entered the society since Reed's committal for trial last April. A former military intelligence officer, Mr Leo Long, confessed to treason in the Sunday Times and, later, at a televised press conference. He had apparently spied for Russia with Anthony Blunt and been given to understand that he would \not be prosecuted when he made his first confession, to MI5, in 1964. The Earl of Lucan became eligible to be declared legally dead after seven years' absence, but his family declared him alive and innocent of murder.
The Indian government finally decided to allow the MCC cricket tour to go ahead. Britain beat America in the finals to win the Venice Cup for the women's world bridge championship. A racing pigeon was sold at auction in Oxford for £4,250. SPC
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