Portrait of the Week
The American navy shot down two Libyan jets in an air battle over the Mediterranean in air space which Libya claims sovereignty over, but the rest of the world feels is international. Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, threatened a third world war over this incident, and President Reagan revealed that he had not been woken up until six hours after it had occurred. Libya also threatened to cut oil exports to America, while the OPEC oil ministers failed to reach agreement on oil prices, which are now unlikely to rise although Saudi Arabia is cutting production of its cheaper oil.
In Ireland, the Catholic and Protestant communities were briefly united in search for a nine-year-old girl, whose body was found in a lake in County Antrim; the old divisions reappeared when a hunger striker supporter, Mr Owen Carron, won the Fermanagh by-election to become a Westminster MP, polling more votes than the late MP, the hunger-striker Robert Sands. This blow to the Government was compounded by the death of a tenth hunger striker, but partially offset when the family of another hunger striker asked doctors to save his life.
People protesting against bus fare increases in Brazil rioted, injuring 27 people and destroying 100 buses; if this example spread to Britain, the Post Office is in grave danger — it was revealed that the proposed new telephone charges, averaging around 10 per cent, meant many popular calls doubling in price. Peace was restored to the railways when the proposed national rail strike was called off, when British Rail agreed to the wage increase, and the unions agreed to talk about increased productivity.
The EEC Commission reported that industrialists in member countries — including Britain — were forecasting increased orders and a brighter outlook. This good news was increased when it was announced that inflation in July was running at the lowest level for two years — although an increase was forecast as a result of higher smoking and motoring costs.
Former Cabinet minister Norman St John Stevas warned that the Social Democrats posed a considerable threat to Conservatives unless Government policies were changed. The SDP continued its triumphant progress by winning a town council seat at Wallingford, Oxfordshire, polling 43 votes out of a total of 67 cast; experts estimated that 98.6 per cent of the register did not vote.
Sebastian Coe set a new world record for the mile in 3 minutes 48.5 seconds — putting him over 100 yards ahead of Sir Roger Bannister's first sub-four minute mile in 1954. The football season opened, and the silly season continued when the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava's butler was found to have been unfairly sacked by his employer who accused him of stealing tea-towels, bottles of Guinness and crab apples.
The Customs and Excise recovered £2.7 million from an amusement arcade fraud on VAT returns. This was almost the same amount wasted by the National Health, when testing inadequate smears for cervical cancer sent by doctors. A mini-cab driver disappeared after a Nigerian businessman left a holdall containing £250,000 on the back seat.
Inner City rioting appears to have been replaced as a summer pastime by Inner City rioting investigations — the inquiry into the Moss Side rioting in Manchester finished its first week, and Lord Scarman's Brixton Tribunal finished yet another week. A homosexual alleged that police had raped him in a Toxteth police station. South Africa was reported to have sent some troops into Angola, and the Moonies were reported to be moving their troops out of Britain — where unemployment is now 60,000 short of the dreaded 3 million mark. The media event of the week was undoubtedly when the Editor of The Times married the editor of Tatler, the best man being the editor of the Washington Post.
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