Portrait of the week
In his fourth Budget as Chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Howe raised tax allowances to take some account of inflation; put 5p on a packet of cigarettes; 10p on a bottle of wine; 30p on a bottle of spirits; 9p on a gallon of petrol, and increased car licences by £10 to £80. Lord Butler died at 79 and Lord Blakenham at 71.
Mr Foot declined to take any action about the prospective Labour candidate for Bradford North, Mr Pat Wall, who at a meeting of the Socialist Workers' Party had seemed to indicate that civil war and bloody revolution were acceptable prices to pay for a socialist programme. Mr Wall, who replaced the sitting member, Mr Ben Ford, later said he hoped these things would not be necessary, but faces re-selection never- theless. The GLC Labour party condemned Mr Foot's earlier repudiation of Peter Tat- chell by nearly two to one. Earlier, Mr Foot had refused to support a proposed statue of Baldwin in the House of Commons on the grounds of Baldwin's incorrect attitude towards the General Strike of 1926 and later appeasement policies.
Mr Charles Haughey was elected prime minister of Ireland by a parliamentary vote of 86 to 79. The Reverend Martin Smyth, Official Unionist, won Belfast South, pushing the Paisleyite candidate into third place. Mr Bryan Magee defected to the SDP, its 28th MP. At an SDP con- ference on. health, Dr David Owen called for tighter curbs on tobacco and alcohol. Mr Francis Pym promised to inquire into the innumerable foreign spies and terrorists said to inhabit the House of Commons disguised as unpaid research assistants, and Mr Nott offered to revive the Home Guard, with 4,500 volunteers to defend Britain's key installations against the invading hordes of the Red Army.
Almost unremarked by the Sunday Times (whose Editor is Mr Frank Giles), the Bishop of London consecrated a memorial to the victims of Yalta in Thurloe Square, Kensington. The Queen opened a £150 million Arts Centre at the Barbican. In a High Court libel action Mr Desmond Wilcox, the plaintiff, revealed that his ex- penses were being met by the BBC out of licence-payers' money, and the BBC pro- jected a supplementary licence fee to pay for two space satellite television channels. Mr Ian Botham intimated that he had refus- ed a £250,000 fee to play with the 'Dirty Dozen' in South Africa.
Great things were said to be happening in Russia after an obscure literary magazine in Leningrad was apparently allowed to drop an oblique hint that it was time for 75-year-old Mr L. Brezhnev to retire. Among the convulsions, Mr A. Shibayev, 67, was replaced by Mr S. Shalayev, 53, the former Minister for Paper and Pulp Industries, as government con- troller of trade unions. At home it was rumoured that Times Newspapers had reached a compromise settlement with NATSOPA whereby -225 NATSOPA members out of the requested 390 would be redun- dant. A White Paper disclosed proposals to cut 38,000 teachers' jobs in the year 1984/85.
In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini seemed to disprove rumours that he was dead by broadcasting a sermon urging further Islamic revolution. In Egypt, five fun- damental Muslims were sentenced to death for the murder of President Sadat. In Guatemala, General Angel Anibal Guevara was elected president to a chorus of claims that the election was rigged. In France, ministers were threatened with assassina- tion by the international terrorist called Carlos unless two of his friends were releas- ed from prison. In Ireland, Gerald Tuite, the suspected terrorist, was arrested in Drogheda.
el rime: muggings in the London area were said to have increased from 38 to 50 a day in a nine-month period; Nancy Kissinger was arrested for attacking another lady who had been demonstrating against nuclear waste in New Jersey; Mrs Irene Macdonald agreed to £6,722 compensation for the murder of her 16-year-old daughter, Jayne, by the Yorkshire Ripper.
Mr Jeremy Thorpe resigned his post at Amnesty International, saying: 'What con- tinues to astound me is that people who came to believe in human rights and civil liberties should display so much pettiness and prejudice.' The government of the Philippines, also, bowed to public opinion, announcing a ban on the slaughter of dogs 'We've been out of work so long it's about time we got a rise.'
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