Portrait of the Week – 14 August 2004

More than 140 cockle-pickers were rescued four miles from shore on the sands of Morecambe Bay after the tractors of two rival gangs collided. Four rowers attempting to break the west-east Atlantic crossing record were rescued on the 39th day after huge waves split their boat 300 miles off the Isles of Scilly. Five British men, five Portuguese and two Belgians diving in the Red Sea off Egypt were rescued, with the help of friendly dolphins, after a 13-hour search when they were swept 45 miles away from their boat. Mr Michael Howard, the Leader of the Opposition, said that police should not waste time recording the race of everyone they stopped in the street; from next April a form will have to be presented to anyone stopped, and information on it also fed into a computer. Mr Mark Oaten, for the Liberal Democrats, said this was ‘the Alf Garnett approach’ to crime, and suggested that retired policemen could fill desk jobs so that beat officers could get out and about.