Portrait of the week
(Ill was discovered near Winchester, V./raising fears for the countryside, but hopes that the harsh custom of sending men into pits to dig coal might soon be done away with. It was revealed that Mr Scargill had met Salem Ibrahim, Colonel Gaddafi's 'paymaster', in Paris on 8 Octo- ber, and that Mr Roger Windsor, chief executive of the NUM, had met and embraced the Colonel himself in Libya last week. Mrs Thatcher, Mr Kinnock and the TUC stood united in condemnation of these secret contacts with an odious reg- ime. But the Coal Board helped relieve the pressure on Mr Scargill when Mr MacGre- gor ordered Mr Michael Eaton, appointed 12 days before to communicate with the press, to stop communicating with the press. New talks were arranged to try to reach a settlement on the lines of the Nacods deal. The High Court ordered sequestration of the NUM's assets for refusing to pay a £200,000 fine for con- tempt of court. Mr Tony Benn called for a general strike in protest. He failed to be elected to the Shadow Cabinet by his fellow MPs, indicating the rift between the Parliamentary Labour Party and consti- tuency activists. Mr Eric Heffer lost his Shadow Cabinet place, Mr Denzil Davies and Mr Donald Dewar gained places. Mr and Mrs Tebbit were transferred to Stoke Mandeville Hospital so that she could be treated for spinal injuries received in the Brighton bombing. Thirty Tory MPs voted against the. Scarman amendment to the Police Bill, which makes racial prejudice a disciplinary offence for police officers and is now supported by the Government. Ministers argued inconclusively in the 'Star Chamber' about how to hold down public spending next year. The Bishop of Durham described the Resurrection as not a 'con- juring trick with bones': a symbolic rather than historical event. Claiming that he had been misquoted in the media by 'people who can only read two or three words at a time', he was himself described in no fewer than seven words as 'sounding top brass, or a tinkling symbol' of the church's decline.
Mrs Gandhi was assassinated. Her son became India's Prime Minister. Ex- plosives were found by the British"police at the French ambassador's residence, shortly before an official reception given by Presi- dent Mitterrand. The French said they had been testing the British sniffer dogs. Perhaps having proved the brilliance of these creatures, they will start being kinder to animals. The affair was thought to be too laughable to harm Anglo-French rela- tions, a dangerous supposition. In Poland, it was announced that a police captain had confessed to killing Father Jerzy Popielusz- ko, a kidnapped priest whose body was later discovered in a reservoir. The British
Government arranged an airlift to help six million Ethiopians facing starvation. The Ethiopian government, which is Marxist, bought 500,000 bottles of whisky. It was alleged that Britain and the United States had earlier withheld aid, to try to topple the Marxists. Herr Rainer Barzel, Speaker of the Bundestag, resigned because of allegations that he had received bribes from the Flick company. The Red Cross reported that Iranian guards had shot Iraqi prisoners.
Mr T.D. Jones died. He was so good at German, according to his Times obituary, that he was employed at Bletch- ley during the war on the 'the lexicography of German communications' (code-breaking), and 'could do single-handed on the military and air side what on the naval side required a section of some 15 highly trained people.' The Times Educational Supplement also published an interesting article, on the growth of love affairs between teachers and pupils. In California, a baboon was killed so that its heart could be trans- planted into a dying baby girl. Vanessa Redgrave complained that she was forced to appear nude in a film because her support for the PLO led the Boston Sym- phony Orchestra to cancel a lucrative
see your baboon transplant works, Dr Moreau.'
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