Portrait of the week
MrCecil Parkinson resigned from his post as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry after Miss Sara Keays, who is expecting his baby in January, had made a statement to the Times which differed in some respects from his own account of their affair. It was her sense of duty, Miss Keays said, which had persuaded her `to put the record straight'. Mr Parkinson, with his wife, left the Conservative Party Con- ference at Blackpool as soon as Mrs Thatcher had accepted his resignation; and it fell to Mr Denis Thatcher to deputise for Mr Parkinson at the opening of a helicopter terminal at Blackpool airport, though not to unveil a plaque inscribed with the name of the absent and former Secretary of State. Mr Parkinson refrained from further comment, but some of his 'friends' challenged Miss Keays's version of events — that the child 'was conceived in a long- standing loving relationship' — and accused her of wanting to destroy his career. It was apparently on election day, 9 June, 'the unhappiest day' of his life, that Mr Parkinson learnt that Miss Keays was pregnant and told the Prime Minister that he would have to marry her. Mr Paul Channon took charge of Mr Parkinson's department for two days until Mr Norman Tebbit was appointed to succeed him. Mr Tom King was made Employment Sec- retary, and Mr Nicholas Ridley, once sacked by Mr Heath, Transport Secretary. At Blackpool, Mrs Thatcher appeared to take a 'softer' line on future relations with Russia, and a motion to encourage the repatriation of immigrants and to repeal all race relations law was defeated. At the Old Bailey, during the trial of a man for rape, Judge Miskin directed that the name of an MP, described as a 'leading politician', should not be published after the defendant claimed that he had found pornographic pictures of his common law wife with the MP and a detective.
PReagan formally declared his 1 candidature for re-election next year, but said that he had not in fact made up his .mind whether to stand again for presidency. Mr Robert McFarlane was appointed to be national security adviser in place of Judge William Clark, who succeeded Mr James Watt as Secretary of the Interior. Mr George Shultz, Secretary of State, was said to have intervened to stop Mrs Jeane Kirkpatrick, ambassador to the UN, getting the job of national security adviser. In California, James Harper was charged with selling to Russia, via Poland, missile secrets of such importance that the Pentagon said the whole US defence system would have to be altered. In Grenada, reports of an attempted coup against the prime minister, Mr Maurice Bishop, were denied by the ruling New Jewel movement,
which said only that he was being subjected to 'party discipline'. In the absence from Mozambique of President Samora Machel, on a visit to Paris and London, South African commando forces bombed the offices of guerrillas of the African National Congress in Maputo. In Athens, a taxi driver, having been reported to the police by a journalist passenger for comparing his prime minister, Mr Papandreou, to Colonel Gaddafi, was jailed for ten months. About 50 Russian ships, including several icebreakers, were reported stuck in the frozen Sea of Chukotsk, off the Siberian coast; and in Leningrad a pop singer was committed to a psychiatric hospital for having made a recording of a rock opera on the life of Christ.
Reed International decided to sell its subsidiary, Mirror Group Newspapers — consisting of six national newspapers — through a public offer of shares. The Daily Mirror said the sale 'will not weaken our voice nor our independence,' but others were less confident. The future of the Labour Party's left-wing weekly, Tribune, was also put in doubt by the resignation from the board of Mr John Silkin and Lord Bruce. Raymond Aron died at 78. Two detective constables were acquitted of charges arising from the shooting of Stephen Waldorf last January. The man they had intended to shoot, David Martin, was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment for GBH, having been acquitted on 10 out of 14 charges. A 20-year-old hairdresser who had successfully posed as a doctor, and assisted at operations, at several London hospitals was remanded in custody for psychiatric reports. A probation officer said she feared this might give him a few ideas on how to pass as a psychiatrist.
SPC 'I'm glad it's all over — I was getting morn- ing sickness reading the newspapers.'
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