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. Magistrates allowed police to hold nine men arrested under the Terrorism Act for another week for questioning at Paddington Green police station; two others were released without charge and two more were no longer being questioned about terrorism. Bernard Levin, ‘Taper’ of The Spectator, broadcaster and journalist, died, aged 75. The Bank of England raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 4.75 per cent. Unemployment rose by 27,000 in the quarter to June, to 1.44 million. More than 7,000 pieces of luggage went missing after British Airways flights were cancelled because of bad weather; ten lorries were hired to take bags to Europe and airports outside London; after several days an aeroplane with 2,000 bags was sent to America; some travellers had returned to London before their luggage had left.
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