The Week
Mr Denis Healey hogged the headlines. He began by warning that living standards were likely to fall by between one and two Per cent. Then he attacked a previously Obscure group, the 'Tory Trots of Annabel's and the Carlton Club'. The pound dipped again when the South Wales miners demanded £100 a week, but Mr Healey came back fighting with his TUC agreement.
President Geisel of Brazil arrived in London on a state visit. Some MPs protested and a bystander threw a tomato at him. Mr Anthony Crosland, the Foreign Secretary, visited Peking and listened to a long attack on the deviationist crimes of the former Chinese vice-premier Teng HslaoI'mg. Mr Roy Hattersley was forced to leave an EEC meeting in Brussels because of what he called the 'infantile tricks' of the Tories.
Sir Harold Wilson ran into trouble over his resignation honours list, In the words of Lord Crathorne of the political honours scrutiny committee, 'three names were sent back to Sir Harold because they had nothing whatever to do with us,' a version of events which did not quite tally with Sir Harold's: have had no queries whatsoever from the committee.'
Much entertaining speculation was enInYed as to the identity of the three names. °ne was widely believed to be Mr James Goldsmith, whose criminal libel action against Privare Eye was discussed in the House of Commons. Mr Silkin, the Attorney General, said that the Director of Public Prosecutions was considering taking over the case. Misfortune visited another newspaper when gunmen relieved the Daily Express of £175,000 in cash. – Mr Hugh Delargy, Labour MP for 1 hurrock, died suddenly at the height of a controversy about the composition of c,ommittees, in which he had been closely involved. Mr Tom Swain, MP, claimed that h. e had been 'harassed to death'. The death brought a momentary lull in parliamentary hostilities. Mrs Margaret Thatcher said that she would change her hair-style, as urged by Walter Terry in the Sun, alongside a phototraTh of Mrs Thatcher looking rather like ,auy Falkender. Mr Edward Heath was P,",otographed looking considerably thinner than when he was Tory leader. Mr Cyril poirl_s!th was also photographed, in disgusting wre, to show how much weight he too had lost The Italian election was fixed for 20 June ni id ever-increasing fears of large ComGtoirvust gains. Mr John Connally, former CornGovern of Texas, founded an America ciens alliance do , for Mediterranean freeIlls • In Texas itself President Ford was
decisively defeated by Mr Ronald Reagan. An opinion poll showed Mr Jimmy Carter running well ahead of Ford.
The British Consul in Asmara was freed after lengthy captivity by the Ethiopians. Mr David Bowie, a pop singer, also returned to England. The Hungarian Embassy protested that its two photographer diplomats had been roughly treated by the police. The Russian Embassy, it emerged, was trying to buy up and develop most of Kensington Park Gardens. It emerged, as well, that a campaign of terror bombing was going on in Soviet Georgia.
Mr Panagoulis, a Greek politician, was killed in a car crash which his friends suspected was not accidental. An Arab was killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the situation deteriorated. 'A senior American official', Dr Kissinger's ghostly persona, suggested that Sir Harold Wilson might negotiate with Rhodesia—a suggestion greeted in Salisbury as 'the joke of the year'. An opinion poll showed that seventy-five percent of the Scotch were in favour of maintaining the Union.
James Hunt, having won the Spanish Grand Prix, was disqualified because his car was fractionally too wide. Southampton won the Cup and Liverpool won the First Division championship; and on a happier note, the West Indian cricket team arrived —and had an awkward initial moment when they forgot to declare the large supply of rum which they never travel without.
Previous page
