PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
'You're a lucky man, Mrs Thatcher was going to hang you herself.' The Commons voted by a majority of 123 not to re-introduce the death penalty. Mr Neil Kinnock apparently abandoned the policy of unilateral nuclear disarma- ment and said that a future Labour govern- ment would use Trident as a bargaining counter. He also made further advances over his own left wing when changes were made to election rules, which will require 20 per cent rather than five per cent of Labour MPs to back a candidate in chal- lenges for the leadership. The Bank of England raised its base rates twice in a week from 7.5 to 8.5 per cent. The Government announced the sale of Giro- bank. A MORI opinion poll gave Paddy Ashdown a 42 per cent lead among SLD supporters over his rival for the leadership, Alan Beith. The British Government final- ly lost its appeal against Mr Peter Wright in Australia. The retired British spy stands to receive about £2 million from his bOok, Spycatcher; the case is believed to have cost the Government at least £500,000. In what appears to be an attempt to resolve the eight-year cold war' in their relations Iran and Britain intensified negotiations over compensation for damage done to the British Embassy in Teheran and the des- truction of the Iranian embassy in London. Rioting at a Cumbrian prison led to the escape of 25 men: an enquiry is to look into whether drugs were involved in the trou- bles, which were triggered off when prison- ers were not allowed to replace their pin-ups on newly decorated walls. Lester Piggott, the imprisoned champion jockey, was stripped of his OBE. Kahyasi won the Derby. Mr Ken Dodd, a comedian, was charged as a 'common law cheat' at a Liverpool magistrates court. The Earl of Stockton has put his grandfather's estate, Birch Grove, in Sussex, up for sale for more than £5 million. Anna Mahler, daughter of the composer and, herself a noted sculptress, died.
AT the Moscow summit the INF treaty was signed; Mikhail Gorbachev voiced strong disappointment that more had not been achieved. Mr Reagan's.chief-of-staff refer- red to the President and the Soviet General Secretary arguing 'toe-to-toe' with each other. In an unprecedented public inter- view in Moscow Dr Andrei Sakharov called for the immediate release of all remaining Soviet political prisoners. Re- turning from Moscow, President Reagan stopped over in Britain, where he heaped praises on Mrs Thatcher, who reciprocated in like manner. The recent restoration of first-past-the-post voting backfired on French conservatives in the elections for the National Assembly. Following the first round of voting the conservative groupings would have been in a dominant position under the former system. An estimated million black workers joined the first day of a three-day nationwide strike in South Africa in protest against government res- trictions on trade unions, and anti- apartheid groups. Benazir Bhutto, leader of the principal opposition party in Pakis- tan, said that she would contest the elec- tions promised by President Zia, even though he may call them in October When she is expecting to give birth to a baby. Mr Dukakis gained the Democratic nomina- tion, beating convincingly the Revd. Jesse Jackson in the Californian primary. At least 68 people were killed when a freight train carrying industrial explosives blew up in the Soviet Union. Six West German miners lived in an air pocket for three days after an explosion at their lignite mine in Hesse was thought to have killed all 57 men trapped underground. M St J T
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