Portrait of the Week
A million people filled the streets of Teheran for the funerals of the Iranian president and prime minister, killed by an incendiary bomb. No group claimed responsibility for the murders, but the exiled former president Bani-Sadr said the politicians had brought about their own fate by repressive policies. A bomb also destroyed the main synagogue in Vienna, killing two people; three Arabs were held for questioning. Terrorists were blamed for two bomb blasts at American bases in West Germany.
South Africa continued to dominate foreign affairs — the Angolans claimed there was still fierce fighting, although South Africa claimed to be withdrawing having captured a Russian officer. The former British prime minister Edward Heath, told a Johannesburg conference that the West could not continue to support the country unless apartheid ended, because otherwise communism would always be seen as the friend of the oppressed. Apartheid also cast a shadow over the forthcoming English cricket tour of India — if Geoff Boycott, who scored a century at the oval against Australia, was picked he might have to make a public declaration never to play or coach again in South Africa. Keith Fletcher was named as captain for the tour.
Thousands of people celebrated the August Bank holiday peacefully at the Notting Hill carnival; but hundreds of 'mods' fought fierce battles with 'skinheads' at Brighton. The RAC reported little holiday traffic on the roads, blaming the high cost of petrol.
The leader of the television union ACTT, Alan Sapper told an Edinburgh conference that his members should 'pull the plugs' on television programmes they didn't agree with, and Peter Jay saw a future where everyone would have thousands of television programmes piped onto 'wall screens'. The BBC was granted a new Royal Charter, valid until 1996, which gave the Home Secretary the right to send the troops to take over the Corporation. The Polish television and radio was also under union threat from Solidarity and gave Lech Walesa uncensored airtime.
A week after declaring that everyone was bisexual, GLC leader Ken Livingstone declared that the troops in Ulster should lay down their arms. Mrs Thatcher refused to meet the new MP for South Fermanagh, Owen Carron, but was getting ready to meet President Mitterrand, who wants to scrap Concorde. There were also calls to scrap parts of British Leyland, after losses of £225 million.
A 20-year-old man from Belfast was held for questioning after a new portrait of the Princess of Wales was slashed at the National Portrait Gallery; there was speculation that the slashing was done for aesthetic reasons, the painting having been widely condemned.
James Callaghan denied reports that he was thinking of returning to politics if Tony Benn won the deputy leadership of the Labour Party. The TUC is in desperate financial straits and proposed an increase of 7 1/2p a week affiliation fees. Two unemployed teenagers committed suicide on Merseyside, leaving a note saying that life on the dole was a life without future. The Confederation of British Industry predicted more big falls in industrial output and investment, but said there was a chance that unemployment would not reach 3 million this year.
Three people died from salmonella poisoning in Darlington, with 14 other cases confirmed.
The battle between Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett for the world mile record continued — Coe beat Ovett's record, then Ovett got it back, but only as Coe knocked a second off it two days later.
The former vice consul at the British Embassy in Saudi Arabia issued a libel writ against Private Eye over the Helen Smith affair.
There were huge crowds at London Zoo, waiting to see if the giant Panda would give birth, although the Zoo said it could not be sure the animal was even pregnant, after its artificial insemination four months ago.
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