Portrait of the week he floating pound came at last
to 1 resemble an iceberg, with nine tenths of its value under the level of the dollar. It then collided with the Government's policy of masterly inactivity, which sank: two days after 'Whitehall sources' had reported that nothing would deflect the Govern- ment, Mr Lawson raised interest rates by a further one and a half per cent. He blamed the strength of the dollar, weakness of oil, and stories in the Sunday newspapers. His opponents proclaimed the bankruptcy of Thatcherism. The pound wallowed cheer- fully at about $1.12; American tourists on shopping sprees in London were quoted as saying that the British could probably compete with Hong Kong and Singapore, as we were selling quality; hotels in New York offered one dollar for one pound. The NUM still seemed to be heading for defeat with the speed and dignity of a glacier. It calved an independent section in Nottingham; a further 1,330 miners re- turned to work; 19 working Yorkshire miners brought an action against 28 leaders of the NUM, alleging conspiracy to assault and intimidate; an 81/21b lump of concrete hit a car carrying two miners to work in South Wales. Dr Moira O'Shea, a retired psychiatrist, was charged in Liverpool with conspiracy to cause explosions. Eight peo- ple were killed in a gas explosion in a block of flats in Putney; four people were killed in a gas explosion in Brussels; in Banbury a man was injured in the eye when a pub lavatory exploded. The New Statesman claimed that Mrs Thatcher favoured a British chemical deterient. The Govern- ment denied it. The baby born to Mrs Kim Cotton as a result of AID was handed over to the father and his wife by a High Court judge. They are believed to be Americans, but must remain anonymous. Mr Neil Kinnock visited Nicaragua.
Q enator Edward Kennedy, described as
■ ..3 'aide infested' by the Daily Telegraph, abandoned his tour of South Africa, after black demonstrators forced the cancella- tion of a rally he was to have addressed in Soweto. Few whites seemed pleased by his visit either. He pronounced it a great success. Three hundred and ninety-two people were killed in a train crash in Ethiopia. The motor of a Pershing 2 missile exploded at an American base in West Germany and killed three people. The Belgian government havered about de- ploying cruise missiles. Two of President Reagan's more important aides arranged between themselves to change jobs, then sent a third to tell him. He approved. The CIA reported that the entire crew of a Russian submarine had died of radiation sickness after an accident in the Baltic in 1981. A cloud of poison gas escaped from the Kema Nobel explosives factory in the
Swedish town of Karlskoga: no one was killed or seriously injured. The Greek government announced that no one more than 70 per cent overweight would in future be given a driving licence. A report from Bradford suggested that the Argen- tine armed forces were now so lavishly equipped that Britain would have to main- tain a sizeable garrison in the Falklands even after the completion of the airstrip at Port Stanley. The French colony if New Caledonia was torn between racialism and nationalism after a leader of the Melane- sian separatists was murdered. Ed Moses, an Olympic athlete, was arrested in Los Angeles for soliciting. An Iranian immig- rant to California shot himself after his wife, whom he had attempted to smuggle into America in a suitcase, was suffocated beneath a pile of baggage at Los Angeles airport.
An eight-year-old boy, who had heard that the Royal Navy was scrapping HMS Hermes, offered to buy it for £15 in cash,.and £7.50 in W. H. Smith gift tokens. The offer was. declined, but he was given a tour of the ship. Mr Clive Sinclair started to sell an electric tricycle only three feet high. It seemed certain to find buyers among those who feel that cycling in urban traffic is too restful to be interesting. A waiter at the Reform Club, who was found to have cannabis worth £700 in his room, excused his behaviour on the grounds that `I'm a socialist, and I objected to the sight of all those rich slobs sitting around gorg- ing themselves with food and drink while 'Put a few more pound notes on the fire, it's freezing in here.'
Previous page
