PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Mr Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said on television of his Budget in the autumn, 'The public will be deeply suspicious of any tax cuts because they remember we promised tax cuts last time and unfortunately weren't able to deliver them.' This much cheered the Labour Party, which was holding its confer- ence in Blackpool and displaying some divi- sions of its own. Mr John Prescott, the Labour deputy leader, said that changes in the party should not be made too quickly lest it 'hit the buffers'. Lady Castle said that the Labour pensions spokesman, Miss Har- riet Harman, was 'talking through her hat' in criticising her own proposals for gener- ous help for pensioners. But Mr Tony Blair, the Labour leader, made a speech that was well received; in it he promised a 'covenant with the British people' and said that the time from now till the millennium was 'a thousand days to prepare for a thousand years'. Four men arrested six days before were charged in connection with a raid that discovered bomb-making equipment belonging to the Irish Republican Army. A car bomb set by a splinter group of the IRA was made harmless by police in Belfast. Protestant terrorists in prison announced that they could no longer support all-party
peace talks. Mr Gerry Adams, the presi- dent of Sinn Fein, the political face of the IRA, published his memoirs; he said his lit- erary style was influenced by P.G. Wode- house. Government papers were released showing that P.G. Wodehouse was cleared of treason by the security services at the end of the war. Mr Neil Hamilton dropped his libel case against the Guardian over its allegations that he received money for ask- ing questions in the Commons. Tapes of the Duchess of York pouring out her heart to a fortune-teller called Madame Vasso were published by tabloid newspapers. A Tornado jet crashed into the sea just off the South Pier at Blackpool. The Dounreay nuclear plant closed after radioactive mate- rial was discharged into the sea. Frankie Dettori rode a record seven winners in one afternoon at Ascot.
DOZENS of Palestinians and Israelis were killed in days of armed clashes set off by the opening of an ancient tunnel near the Muslim holy places on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, said at first that he would not meet Mr Yasser Arafat, the President of the Palestine National Authority, until the violence ended. He then accepted President Bill Clinton's invi- tation to a meeting in Washington; King Hussein of Jordan went to Washington too. The Taliban Islamic army captured Kabul and shot dead Najibullah, the com- munist former president of Afghanistan, whose body was displayed from a traffic gantry; Sharia law was proclaimed, with the death penalty for drug-dealing and adul- tery and the prohibition of women working outside the home. The military govern- ment of Burma prevented supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader, from gathering outside her home in Ran- goon, and arrested dozens of them. More than 300 women in Kuwait protested against the eligibility of men only to vote in next week's elections. Colonel Yahya Jam- meh won presidential elections in the Gambia and his opponent, Mr Ousainou Darbo, went into hiding. A North Korean submarine ran aground in South Korea and 21 aboard were killed. Shusaku Endo, the Japanese novelist, died, aged 73. Microsoft offered customers in China replacement software packs when Win- dows programmes prepared in Taiwan flashed up on computer screens messages such as 'Communist bandits'.
CSH
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