Portrait of the week
Thirty-one weeks after the miners' strike started, the law of contract was at last invoked by two Nottinghamshire miners, members of the South Yorkshire NUM, who obtained from a High Court judge a ruling that the strike was unofficial and illegal. They returned to work, with two others, at Manton colliery on Monday morning. A mass picket was averted by night-time manoeuvres by the police, and in the end the journalists watching out- numbered the pickets. Mr Scargill had ignored the court • ruling, and persisted in describing the strike as official. In consequ- ence he was served with a writ alleging contempt at the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool. The only contempt I have committed is to fight for my class,' he said, while other NUM sources explained that since miners had only been 'called on' to strike by their executive, and not 'ordered', the High Court had misunder- stood the problem. Near Silverwood Col- liery police were ambushed at a roadblock in the dark by miners calling on their colleagues to refrain from working. At Blackpool Mr Kinnock called on the party to allow one man one vote reselection of MPs, but was comprehensively defeated both on this issue and in an attempt to avoid discussion of picket line violence, which the Conference blamed firmly on the police before voting for a unilateralist defence policy, despite the objections of Mr Healey and Mr Callaghan. Mr Kinnock spoke against every sort of violence and in favour of winning elections. The Nacods executive obtained an overwhelming majority in its strike ballot and settled down to negotiate with the Coal Board from a position of strength. Johnson Matthey, the banking arm of a large commodity-dealing firm, had to be rescued by the Bank of England, and the pound settled down. The Sun lost four days' production after the print unions objected to some picketing miners being described as 'scum'. The Daily Mirror announced the first winner of its £1,000,000 bingo game.
The agreement which will transfer sovereignty over Hong Kong to China in 1997 was initialled in Peking. It appears to provide for the continuation of the capitalist system in Hong Kong for the next 50 years. The inhabitants of Hong Kong, told by Sir Geoffrey Howe that they could take it or leave it, took it with good grace. President Reagan, still a long way ahead in the opinion polls, was attacked by both Democrats and conservatives for his attempts to transfer the blame for the lack of security at the bombed American embassy in Beirut to ex-President Carter, the CIA, or anyone else not at the White House. Raymond Donovan, President Reagan's Secretary for Labour, was in-
dicted on numerous fraud charges in New York. He becomes the first American cabinet minister to face criminal charges while in office. One of his co-defendents is already serving seven years for hijacking and drug trafficking. Mr Donovan has taken unpaid leave of absence from his job. A shipment of seven tons of arms from America was caught by half the Irish Navy — three corvettes — on its way to the IRA. Seven 'Republicans' were arrested as a result. The weapons found included hand grenades, heavy machine guns and explo- sives. A prominent ETA leader who jumped bail three years ago was arrested in France. Magistrates in Palermo made out arrest orders against 326 suspected Mafia members after conversations with a prom- inent Sicilian drug-runner, arrested in Bra- zil, who had had an indecent number of his relatives shot by rival 'families'. Kerry Packer, the Australian entrepreneur, caused a sensation by issuing a 6,000 word statement denying that he was a crook. This was the latest in a series of increasing- ly bizarre scandals that had already re- duced the Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, to tears at a press conference, when he too was forced to deny that he was a crook, and to announce that his daughter and son-in-law were junkies. Anatoly Karpov took a 3-0 lead in the world championship chess match.
An aphrodisiac for cockroaches was developed in New York. Terry Dicks MP suggested that vicious rapists be cas- trated. Rugby council announced a ban on the employment of homosexuals. Mrs Dual Roadnight who, exasperated when her two-year-old son got under her feet, kicked him to death, was sentenced to two years, suspended for two years. The Revd Clive Southerton of Prestatyn set an example to everyone involved in the miners' dispute by making an after dinner speech 15 hours long. A committee of Euro-MPs called for Waterloo Station to be renamed so as not
Previous page
