PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`VERY WELL, ALONE' ABritish ferry, the Herald of Free Enterprise, which had just left Zeebrugge for Dover, capsized and sank in shallow water a mile off shore, with the loss of about 135 lives: 408 people were rescued. Mr John Moore, the Secretary of State for Transport, told Parliament that there was no evidence of a fundamental fault in the design of the ship, but it has long been known that cross-Channel ferries of this type, built without transverse bulkheads on the car decks, would go down very quickly in the event of the ship unexpectedly taking in water through loading doors. In the aftermath of the disastrous perform- ance by Labour in the Greenwich by- election, Mr Neil Kinnock let it be known that any 'sorting out' of his Party was going to be done by him alone. The former Labour Prime Minister, Mr James Cal- laghan, then repudiated his party's nuclear defence policy in the House of Commons, and afterwards in the Commons tea-room, where Mr John Prescott, Labour's chief employment spokesman, is said to have shouted, `You are leading us like bloody lambs to the slaughter,' meaning the next election. Mr Callaghan had said: 'I am not arguing with you, Prescott.' The two largest teaching unions voted in favour of a third year of strikes in schools. Figures were released which showed that around 25 per cent of young people entering the Government's Job Training Scheme could not read or write. British Rail announced that second-class tickets are to be phased out in May: they will be renamed 'stan- dard' tickets.
PRESIDENT Reagan went on national television in the United States to make a speech in which he took 'full responsibility' for the Iran affair, 'angry as I may be for activities undertaken without my know- ledge'. The new White House chief of staff described the address as a 'dynamite speech that would be a turning point'. Another figure in the affair, Miss Fawn Hall, formerly secretary to Colonel Oliver North, was approached by a magazine and offered $500,000 to pose naked for the edification of its readers. She turned down the offer, describing it as 'disgusting'. In South Africa, further evidence of turmoil in Afrikaner politics was seen. Mr Wimpie de Klerk resigned as editor of the leading Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Rapport, 27 senior academics at Stellenbosch Universi- ty called for the abolition of all apartheid laws and Dr Denis Worrall, the former South African Ambassador to the Court of St James, campaigned vigorously and effectively against the National Party. A Spanish infant was identified as the rein- carnation of the founder of a Buddhist monastery near Kathmandu. The boy's parents received instruction from Lama Yeshe, who died in 1984. He told them to marry and have five children, the last of whom, now aged two, will take up his place as head of the community. New calcula- tions based on American satellite measure- ments suggested that Mount Everset may not be the world's highest mountain after all. K2 has 'grown' almost 1,000ft. There remains the possibility, however, that Everest will likewise be found taller, when measured by the same technique, and will regain its ascendancy. Giulio Andreotti agreed for the tenth time to try to form a new government in Italy. Mr Charles Haughey was elected Taoiseach of the Irish Republic by the casting vote of the chair- man of the Dail. MStJT
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