Portrait of the week
After ten branches of the National Union of Mineworkers had voted not to strike, and the police had surrounded a number of collieries to guard against the ac- tivities of 'flying pickets' from Yorkshire, nearly a quarter of the country's 175 coal 'mines were said to be operating normally. The Coal Board stayed its action for con- tempt of court against the Yorkshire miners; Mr Scargill continued to resist demands for a national ballot, describing the police presence at the pits as being like 'George Orwell's nightmare state'; and he sued the Sun for libel for having suggested that he had imposed an overtime ban and refused a ballot in defiance of the wishes of the majority of his union members. The member countries of the EEC failed to reach agreement on Britain's net budget contribution at the end of a two-day meeting of heads of state in Brussels; France and Italy, furious at Mrs Thatcher's refusal to give way, blocked the payment of a rebate of £450 million due from 1983 and payable by the end of this month. An opi- nion poll suggested that nearly half the population of Britain thought that our con- tinued membership of the Common Market was 'a bad thing'. Following last week's Budget, the Financial Times index rose above 900 for the first time. Building societies reduced the mortgage rate by one per cent to 10.25, and the US prime lending rate was raised by V2 per cent. The leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, Dominic McGlinchey, was extradited from Dublin to Northern Ireland and there charged with murder, and a part-time ma- jor in the Ulster Defence Regiment was shot at a blood transfusion centre in Belfast. The Home Secretary accepted that his power to order the tapping of telephones should in future be subject to the statutory authority of the Telecommunications Bill.
Mr Walter Mondale made something of a comeback in the US Democratic primary elections by defeating Mr Gary Hart in Illinois, and earlier in caucus elec- tions in Michigan, Arkansas, Mississippi and Puerto Rico. Mr John Glenn retired from the presidential contest. Lebanese leaders left Lausanne, Switzerland, after more than a week of talks which did not produce any agreement for a lasting peace; about 50 people were killed in Beirut while the 'ceasefire' continued. In Washington, King Hussein of Jordan accused the US of bias in favour of Israel, and said that he would not accept President Reagan's offer of 1,600 Stinger air defence missiles at the expense of the dignity of his country. In the Gulf war, a new offensive by Iran in the marshes north of Basra was anticipated, to coincide with the new year. The Justice Department in Washington began in- vestigating the financial affairs of Mr Ed-
win Meese (whom President Reagan has nominated to be Attorney-General) after he had admitted at a Senate hearing that he had 'inadvertently failed' to disclose a $15,000 interest-free loan. Mr Rupert Mur- doch gave up his attempt to take over Warner CoMmunications, taking with him a profit of £35 million on his 7 per cent holding in the company.
Oxford won the 130th Boat Race, which 'L./took place a day after the Cambridge boat had broken its bow by hitting a moored barge. Both crews completed the course in record time. For the first time in 60 years, Scotland achieved the 'grand slam' of rugby football by beating France at Murrayfield. Silver valued at £5 million was stolen from the Marquess of Tavistock at Woburn Abbey. The Prince of Wales em- barked on' a tour of Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe as a director of the Commonwealth Development Corpora- tion; his proposed meeting in Harare with Mr Mugabe was thought inappropriate in view of the reported killing in Matabeleland of thousands of people opposed to the government. In Hampshire, the wife of a curate and a solicitor were publicly banned from taking Holy Communion because of their sinful relationship; and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a woman who had been de' nounced from the pulpit of the Church of Christ for the sin of fornication was award- ed $400,000 damages for the invasion of her
privacy. At Marlborough Street magistrates' court in London a man was fined £20 for jumping off the platform at Oxford Circus underground station to pick up cigarette ends because he had 'run out of
'I thought I might fly the wife over to Miami and riot there'.
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