The Week
Alexander Solzhenitsyn appeared on television to declare that the West was on the 'verge of collapse'. Under the influence of this intoxicating rhetoric, Lord GeorgeBrown stood up to be counted, resigned from the Labour Party, and collapsed. He had earlier voted against the Government's 'Press charter' which certainly looked less appealing than ever as the National Union of Journalists in Bradford continued its 'blacking' of four non-union journalists.
A dozen serving or former police officers were charged with corruption after a series of dawn raids which, as one of them (appropriately called Moody) observed, were carefully stage-managed. Another of those charged became the first policeman for a long time to complain that a conspiracy charge is a wicked thing'. The arrests were coincidentally preceded by a sPeech by Sir Robert Mark, Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, in which he comPlained about the number of acquittals in Police corruption cases. Sir Robert was also heard as the week's castaway on 'Desert Island Discs', but he did not ask for 'A Policeman's Lot is Not a Happy One'.
The police discovered a bomb factory in Clapham, but they were unable to prevent a woman being attacked by a lion in Woking.
Mrs Thatcher made advances to the trade unions but they seemed, at least Initially, unrequited, and the TUC called for the rich to be soaked a bit more. Mr Varley admitted bashfully that he had never met Sir Richard Dobson, the newly appointed head of British Leyland. Sir Richard admitted puzzlingly that he did not know what to do with his £80,000 golden handshake from British American Tobacco. A Labour MP suggested that he might buy AL shares.
President Ford won two more primaries and called Castro a bandit. The Democratic Primary in Massachusetts *was won convincingly by Senator Jackson, with the assistance of Mr Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Who said with exemplary candour that Jackson was 'the best candidate in the bemocratic Party because he's my best friend in the Democratic Party'. Messrs Smith and Nkomo resumed talks in khodesia after a border incident in which tsventy-one guerrillas had been killed. Mr Callaghan said that he was treading warily In his dealings with Mr Smith. In China the campaign against Teng Hsiao-ping was s,tePped up on the instigation, it was believed, of Mrs Mao.
The House of Commons passed by a arge majority a Bill to make us wear car tseat belts, and another Bill was introduced ° make us go metric; in both cases prolonged persuasion had failed and tougher measures became necessary. Also in the House, Mr Wilson claimed that the Crossman diaries were full of untruths.
Iceland caused the Government to be 'puzzled' by offering a smaller, 100-mile fishing limit. Meanwhile, the British trawlers returned with substantial catches only to find that the price of cod had collOsed. Six men were killed when a North Sea oil rig capsized. Mr William Ross overruled a' public inquiry and gave permission for an oil refinery to be built on an unspoilt part of the Cromarty Firth.
The Countess of Portarlington's chauffeur was accused of stealing her paintings. It was alleged in court that she had habitually called him 'darling'. More confusingly, the chauffeur was 'described as a doctor of philosophy'. In another court a woman was accused of killing her husband by making him drink too much, and in yet another court a juror was fined and discharged for being unfit for jury service through drunkenness.
Scotland Yard enlisted the help of the FBI in the search for Mr Wilson's papers, while another Wilsonian adventure came unstuck: it turned out that the ungrateful Russians had only taken up £25m of the £950m cheap credit which Mr Wilson had light-heartedly offered them in Moscow a year ago.
The Dorchester Hotel announced that it had withdrawn its writ against Judge Argyle, after the matter had been 'settled amicably'. The Ulster Convention ended in uproar, while elsewhere in Ireland Eddie Gallagher met his son by Dr Rose Dugdale for the first time. And in Frankfurt a businessman gave a new meaning to boardroom battles: dismissed by his two partners, he shot them both dead.
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