PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
'That will be PO million and 50 cents, sir.'
he Government agreed to award nurses an average 15.3 per cent pay in- crease and promised to fund it in full from Treasury reserves: ministers hoped that they will now have a breathing space for their review of the future structure of the NHS. P&O prepared to sail its cross- Channel ferries without reaching an agree- ment with the National Union of Seamen, now in the 12th week of their strike. The Secretary of State for Defence announced that Britain would join the development of the European Fighter Aircraft with West Germany, Italy and Spain at an initial cost of £1.7 billion, guaranteeing 4,000 jobs. The Chancellor of the Exchequer apparently rebuked the Prime Minister for her part in their recent dispute over ex- change rate policy: he said that it was 'unfortunate that the thing was discussed as it was in public'. Mr Jeff Rooker MP asked the Home Secretary to reopen files on the murder of 70 British prisoners-of-war near Dunkirk in 1940 and 'bring to account the former Nazi officer Wilhelm Mohnke of Hamburg'. The Home Office revealed that by late February 207,000 applications for British citizenship were lying unopened at one of their offices in Croydon. In an
attack of spring fever scholars argued over a claim by Mr Peter Levi that some verses he had unearthed in a library in the US were by William Shakespeare; nobody — as yet — has claimed that they should be attributed to Bacon. Lord Buckethead, the Gremloids Party candidate who stood for Parliament in the Finchley division at the last general election, has been reported to the Director of Public Prosecutions for failing to submit his election expenses. Lords Hailsham and Leverhulme were appointed to the Order of the Garter. Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, died at the age of 83.
AN Israeli court sentenced John Demjan- juk to hang after finding that he was 'Ivan the Terrible', a mass executioner at the Treblinka death camp during the second world war. Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader, and President Assad of Syria met for the first time since they began their bitter feud in 1983. At the end of the first round of the French presidential elections Francois Mit- terrand headed the poll well clear of his rival Jacques Chirac. With 14.4 per cent of the popular vote, the National Front Lead- er, Jean-Marie Le Pen, will play an impor- tant part in the run-up to the second ballot. In French-controlled New Caledonia, Kanak separatists hacked three policemen to death and took 27 hostage during voting. In talks in Moscow designed to lead to a further superpower summit Mr Gor- bachev criticised President Reagan for his 'sermons'. Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alli- luyeva, gave up her Soviet citizenship for the second time. George Blake, the spy whose escape from Wormwood Scrubs in 1966 caused a great sensation, appeared on a television chat show speaking Russian with, it is said, much greater fluency than Kim Philby. The Czechoslovak cabinet was reshuffled for the first time in two decades. Black leaders in South Africa greeted the news that President Botha wanted to see 'recognised blacks' involved in the Presi- dent's Council and the electoral college that chooses the state president with little enthusiasm: it was felt however to be a signal that Mr Botha was abandoning his attempt to appease far-right whites. In a New York sale of Andy Warhol's posses- sions vast prjces were paid for his collec- tion of kitsch: Mr Warhol's 'Miss Piggy memorabilia', for example, went for
Previous page
