PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`Room for one more inside, sir.'
The Conservatives lost the Newbury by- election to the Liberal Democrats through a huge swing, and did very badly in county council elections: the Conservatives were left in control of only one, Bucking- hamshire; Labour ended up with 14, the Liberal Democrats with 3, Independents 1 and there was no overall control in 28. Mr Kenneth Clarke, the Home Secretary, said the Government was in a 'dreadful hole'. Mr John Patten, the Secretary of State for Education, announced that tests in schools for 14-year-olds would be simplified next year, but must go ahead this year. Mr Ger- ald Ronson, who served a prison term for his part in the Guinness scandal, had more than £1.7 million paid to him by Heron (the company he founded) to help pay a £5 mil- lion fine imposed by the courts. He will also receive more than £5 million from Heron over the next five years; the company is attempting to gain its bondholders' consent to a restructuring to deal with debts of some £1.4 billion. A man in the care of Group 4, the company entrusted with ferry- ing prisoners to and fro from court, drank himself to death after getting hold of two litres of spirits. The Sun claimed that a tape of the Prince and Princess of Wales having an argument (extracts from which it pub- lished) was made by MIS. Raine Countess Spencer, aged 63, the daughter of Barbara Cartland and stepmother of the Princess of Wales, is to marry Count Jean-Francois de Chambrun, aged 57, a Frenchman. Dame Freya Stark the travel writer died, aged 100. Ann Todd, star of The Seventh Veil (1945) died, aged 84. Ian Mikardo the left-wing Labour MP died, aged 84. Mr Tom McNal- ly, who is 5ft 1 lin, completed a navigation of the Atlantic in a craft 5ft 41/2 in long. The fountains of Trafalgar Square were drained after a scare over legionnaire's disease.
ATTACKS by Croats on Muslims around Mostar in Bosnia must stop or something would be done, according to the United Nations Security Council. The council also condemned Serb destruction of mosques in Bosnia. The UN earlier declared the town of Zepa in east Bosnia, where 30,000 refugees are sheltering, a 'safe haven'. The Bosnian Serbs perservered with their inten- tion of holding a referendum on the Vance- Owen Peace Plan despite appeals from President Milosevic of Serbia. The United States and the European powers were unable to agree about what military steps, if any, to take if the combatants refuse to stop fighting. The Democratic senator, Joe Biden, accused Europe's policy for Bosnia of being 'a discouraging mosaic of indiffer- ence, timidity, self-delusion and hypocrisy'. President Clinton proposed sending troops to prevent fighting in Macedonia. President Yeltsin sacked his head of security, General Mikhail Barsukov, after reports of plots to kill him. Russia vetoed a vote by the UN Security Council on paying for peacekeep- ing in Cyprus. Police in South Africa inves- tigated an alleged plot to assassinate Mr Joe Slovo, the chairman of the Communist Party. Children born to foreign children in France will in future have to apply for citi- zenship. In Paraguay's first democratic presidential elections Mr Juan Carlos Was- mosy of the ruling Colorado party claimed victory. More than 100, including children, died in a fire in a toy factory near Bangkok. New Zealand police sought a 100-ton bridge stolen from a Wellington layby. CSH
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