Portrait of the week
The Chancellor introduced a short budget, without any of the radical measures which had been feared by his own party. The scope of VAT was not extended; tax privileges associated with pensions were not attacked. The payroll tax known as National Insurance contribu- tions was reformed: the upper limit was abolished, and lower rates were introduced for small incomes. Great comfort was given to the self-employed; their NI con- tributions were lowered, while the price of whisky went up by only ten pence. The pound rose smartly to almost $1.17. Isling- ton Council announced a grant of £3,000 to Irish lesbians fleeing from sexist and poss- ibly racist oppression in their homeland. Mrs Thatcher formed a Cabinet committee to deal with the problems of football hooliganism after Millwall supporters rioted in Luton and nearly killed a police- man. Mrs Thatcher had earlier been embarrassed when she condemned a teachers' strike at a school for handicapped children: it turned out that she had con- fused two schools with similar names, and that the school struck was merely compre- hepsive. Sir Keith Joseph took the blame for this bad briefing, and announced that no more money would be available for the teachers even if they went to arbitration. It was said that one million pupils would soon be affected by the strike. Mr Edward Heath announced `an alternative budget for jobs' and then complained that Mrs Thatcher's team had celebrated their vic- tory in the 1975 leadership campaign with champagne. Baroness Denise von Thyssen was refused permission in court to discover if her husband was worth £1,200 million, as she believes, or only £400 million, as he claims. Lord Penney told an Australian commission of inquiry into British atomic bomb tests in the Fifties that he had considered testing an atom bomb near Wick, in Scotland, but had rejected the idea because the climate there was too damp for electronic instruments.
rr he Iranians launched a major offensive I in the marshes of southern Iraq, hop- ing to cut off the port of Basra from Baghdad, which was hit by three Iranian missiles. At one point the Iranian forces crossed the Tigris; they now seem to have been driven back with very heavy losses. Dividing the claims made by each side by three, it would appear certain that at least 10,000 soldiers have died in the battle. Lebanese Shi'ites continued to fight an increasingly demoralised Israeli army. Lebanese Christians began to fight each other: a mutiny in the Phalange against President Gemayel's allegedly pro-Syrian bias left him dependent on the support of the Syrian army, which took up positions just north of Beirut. The `Islamic Jihad' terrorist group warned foreigners to leave West Beirut, and kidnapped four of them. The British Embassy there was evacuated. Mr Gorbachev was invited to a summit meeting by President Reagan. He had earlier been commended to the Politburo by Andrei Gromyko, who said that Gor- bachev `Has a nice smile, but he's got iron teeth'. Sir Geoffrey Howe made a speech in which he called the SDI project `com- plex and difficult'. Lord Carrington then made a speech which suggested that the complexities and difficulties of the SDI project would not become apparent for another ten or 15 years, so unity was in order now. Belgium accepted the deploy- ment of Cruise missiles on its soil. This provoked a colourful demonstration in Brussels, with contributions from many other countries. It is not known what role, if any, was played by IMillwall CND. ACB
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