Portrait of the week
The SDP confounded all predictions by winning the Portsmouth South by- election by 1300 votes, overturning a Con- servative majority of 12,000 at the general election. The Labour candidate came third. The Government was defeated in the House of Lords, when an amendment was carried to make postal ballots compulsory in the election of union officials. The number of long-term unemployed, those out of work for more than a year, rose above a million. The Warnock Committee recommended that commercial surrogate motherhood agencies should be banned, and embryo research limited to 14 days after fertilisa- tion. Police shot two unarmed men in a London sub-post office. Four people were killed, 17 injured, in an explosion on a tanker in Milford Haven docks. A boy died after being struck by lightning at St Albans. A man and a woman were arrested in London in connection with the Harrods bombings last December. The National Union of Teachers extended its programme of strikes. Mr Francis Pym, former Foreign Secretary, accused Mrs Thatcher of over- centralising the Government and taking too much power into her own hands. In the miners' dispute, peace talks in Rotherham broke down after only 90 minutes. A miner was killed when he was hit by a lorry while picketing a power station. The National Union of Mineworkers said it would boycott the Coal Board's proposed back- to-work ballot. Amid efforts to persuade miners to return to work, the Board's Chairman, Mr Ian MacGregor, considered sending out a personal letter beginning 'Dear Colleague'. The President of the TUC, Mr Ray Buckton, appealed to policemen who found picket duty distasteful to resign, adding: 'When we get control we will give you a job to look after our, rights in a proper way, not as Fascists as you are being led today.' The miners' Presi- dent, Mr Arthur Scargill, spent a night in Rotherham hospital suffering from minor head injuries after the worst violence of the strike so far, outside Orgreave coking works. The Queen was reported to be deep- ly upset by the clashes between police and miners.
In the European elections only 32 per cent of British voters, and 57 per cent of the total electorate, turned out. The British Labour Party was heartened to win 15 more seats than in 1979, but still held 13 fewer than the Conservatives. The Alliance par- ties won no seats and a fifth of the votes. Among small parties in Europe, the French National Front and the German Greens made spectacular gains. The Canadian Liberal Party said farewell to President Trudeau and elected Mr John Turner to replace him. Spain and Argentina signed a joint declaration condemning Great Britain for retaining sovereignty over the Falkland
Islands and Gibraltar. The Bank for Inter- national Settlements claimed that Latin Americans had worsened their debt crisis by spiriting £55 billion abroad in the last six years. From Amritsar it was reported that Sikh militants had been shot at point-blank range, their hands tied behind their backs with their turbans. Sir lain Sutherland, British Ambassador in Moscow, cancelled a Queen's birthday broadcast he was to make on Soviet television rather than modify his text to meet Soviet objections. Two men who deserted from the Soviet army while serving in Afghanistan were granted per- mission to stay in Britain for a year, and ar- rived at a hospital in the London area to recover from the effects of opium ad- ministered to them by their Afghan captors.
No peers were created, but Professor Friedrich von Hayek was made a Com- panion of Honour in the Queen's birthday honours list. In the first test match against the West Indies, the England team lost by an innings and 180 runs, its fourth heaviest defeat ever. John McEnroe behaved with his customary loutishness while playing brilliant tennis at Queen's Club. HMS Jupiter collided with London Bridge. Cam- bridge University considered demolishing its History Faculty building, which was opened in 1967, won a RIBA award, and now suffers from 'a multitude of problems'. The Press Council ruled that anti-French jokes published in the Sun, while tasteless• and puerile, were not defamatory, inflam- `Before you enter the Vatican you must allow me to check your handshake'.
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