Bitter rivals Neil Kinnock with Margaret Thatcher being polite
Bitter rivals Neil Kinnock with Margaret Thatcher being polite

Another slow start to the day after a very late night as I tried to clear up my office. I organised some flowers for Edie Smith, now in Hinchingbrooke hospital, and dropped in on Vera Ruff and noticed that the British Telecom manhole cover had been repaired as one of my initial triumphs. Thatcher under pressure on economic issues, the Met for fabricating evidence and there is more fighting in the liberal Lebanon between rival Muslim groups, supported by Iran and Syria

After a very late night I was rather groggy this morning and ended up with a headache. I still scanned the FT after coming down late for breakfast and then, after taking two aspirin tablets, I started work in my office by first trying to clear everything up so that I could find that which I needed to do! I eventually tidied my office, got the outstanding papers in files and appointments in the diary. I got Di to send some flowers to Edie Smith at Hinchingbrooke Hospital and she received some herself from the SLD! I had driven out this morning and saw Mrs Ruff on the way and had a chat, then I went up to St James Road to inspect the British Telecom manhole cover and found it repaired, as of yesterday, to a good standard! They had attended the other dodgy one in the High Street and repaired that too! Progress, which is good to see. Di went with her mother to Letchworth today, to see the old ‘Garden City’ and reminisce about old times. I had another call about the playing field vandals, who are driving a neighbour mad with their language and behaviour.

I think that, as well as increased policing, we need to shut the field with gates an hour after sunset. Worked away all day, apart from a little time in the garden to look around, and was in and locked up writing my journal by 9.00pm. The news today is of an effective Labour opposition attack on Government Economic Policy. After recent disagreement in the ministerial ranks, Neil Kinnock attacked Thatcher for having a ‘Loadsamoney economy heading for Loadsatrouble’ that favoured the rich. Thatcher, speaking on Swedish television, defended her policies of economic priorities. The City is still unsettled after a large inflation increase today. More basic problems in the Metropolitan Police Force, as two policemen are jailed for fabricating a case against two youths and the National Council of Civil Liberties asking for an enquiry. There has been an anonymous leaflet circulating in the SLD, criticising Paddy Ashdown’s leadership qualities and it seems that the MPs tend to favour Alan Beith the other leadership candidate, but the Party will pick Paddy. The IRA now claim planting a bomb at the Royal Ulster Show and it seems that it was not a gas explosion after all. The fighting goes on in Lebanon between rival Muslim groups, supported by Iran and Syria, and there is renewed hope of the release of Western hostages. As another commentary on a sick society, a women in a Chicago suburb has walked into a schoolroom with a gun, killing an eight year old boy and injuring two girls and two boys aged between 7 and 9. A British tank has run over a car in West Germany, killing one and seriously injuring two other occupants, as the car had strayed into a wrong lane.