PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
`One day, son, this redevelopment will be yours.'
r Neil Kinnock returned to the task of trying to move the Labour Party away from its unilateralist stance on nuclear weapons before the next general election; in an interview he made it clear that he thought a Labour government should be prepared to put Britain's weapons into strategic arms limitation talks. Public anxi- ety over food safety continued: a 'secret' report — later seen to be based on ludic- rous calculations — was said to show that two million salmonella infections occurred in 1987. Mrs Edwina Currie finally appeared before the House of Commons agriculture select committee; playing the role of grande dame, she avoided answer- ing any questions. Following the pattern of the 'egg scare', government ministers gave conflicting advice over a new 'cheese scare'; French farmers were said to be particularly incensed over remarks made by Kenneth Clarke, Secretary of State for Health, that soft, unpasteurised cheeses might be banned. This was denied by Mr John MacGregor, Minister of Agriculture. The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the rate of inflation had exceeded seven per cent for the first time in nearly four years. Sir Leon Brittan made a speech in which he urged the Prime Minister to give up her resistance to Britain joining as a full member the European Monetary System. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York met MPs and peers of the Ecclesiastical Committee at West- minster to try to avert a confrontation over the General Synod's measure for ending the absolute ban on the ordination of divorcees, due to come up soon before Parliament. Mr Edward Heath and 13 other Conservative MPs abstained on a government guillotine motion for the Offi- cial Secrets Bill. It was revealed that the chief executive of Westminster city council is to be paid up to fl million for 'early retirement'; it was suggested that this was dependent on his silence over the con- troversial affairs of the council which in- clude the selling of three municipal cemeteries for ,15p., Hundreds of bird- watchers flocked to the car park of a Tesco supermarket in Kent to observe an Amer- ican golden winged warbler, never before recorded on this side of the Atlantic. The Queen's fleet of cars was converted to lead-free petrol. Mr Christopher Moran, said to be one of Britain's 100 wealthiest men, won squatter's rights over a plot of council-owned land in Amersham.
FIVE Pakistanis were killed and many more injured in Islamabad during demon- strations against Mr Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses; Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini urged Muslims throughout the world to execute Mr Rushdie and anyone connected with the book. The Iranian minister of the interior predicted a `heavY ruling' against Mr Roger Cooper, the British businessman held for alleged spying. The Soviet army quit Afghanistan. While their politicians argued among themselves, inujahedin armed forces pre- pared their attack on Kabul. Sporadic violence marked the general election, in Jamaica which saw Mr Michael Manley returned to power: his People's National Party won a landslide victory over Mr Edward Seaga's Labour Party. The US Secretary of State, Mr James Baker, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany continued to be locked in disagreeMent over the modernisation of Nato's short- range nuclear missiles. Hungary's lead- ership confirmed that it was prepared to move towards a multi-party political sys- tem. The former chairman of the Recruit company in Japan was arrested on bribery charges, giving new impetus to a scandal that has greatly shaken the government of Mr Takeshita. The first vote on Mr John Tower's nomination as US defence secret- ary was delayed while new allegations about his finances were investigated, .A charter plane flying from Italy to America crashed into a mountain in the Azores killing all 144 crew and passengers on board.
MStJT
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