The Week That Was June 21 to 27, 1993

He added: “...I think there would have been more pits open now and, indeed, the relationship between coal miners and the management of the industry would be very different to the one we have now.”

Meanwhile, in Westminster Michael Mates looked set to quit as Northern Ireland Secretary, as powerful Tories branded him an embarrassment to the party.

The pressure on Mr Mates to resign looked irresistible, following revelations surrounding his links with the fugitive tycoon Asil Nadir, who reportedly channelled donations to the Tory Party from a secret off-shore bank account.

Downing Street refused to add to PM John Major’s earlier statement in the Commons, when he described the minister’s gift of a watch to Mr Nadir as “a misjudgement but not a hanging offence.”

Police could be on armed patrol as a matter of routine with 10 years, said Britain’s top police officer.

It would be a “creeping process” in response to the growing use of guns by criminals, said Paul Condon, in his first major interview since taking over as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Almost 1.5m homes in England were unfit for human habitation, according to a report by the Department of the Environment.

The Institute of Housing said the number of unfit homes vastly outstripped resources to tackle the disrepair.

Carol Grant of homeless charity Shelter said: “The shocking levels of bad housing in this country prove that we need to start investing in long-term solutions to a growing problem.”

Bringing unfit empty homes back into use would be a cost-effective way to house the tens of thousands of homeless living in expensive temporary accommodation.

In foreign news, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic opened a window of opportunity for new peace talks which would dismember his country but end its war, after meeting European Community foreign ministers.

But, following the emergency session held before the EC summit in Copenhagen, he insisted that fresh moves could not go ahead under what he called the cover of Serb military conquests.

Mr Izetbegovic, who had flatly rejected Serb and Croat proposals to divide Bosnia along ethnic lines, said after seeing the foreign ministers, that he needed to go home and consult his government.

Perhaps good friends were unsurprised to hear that the Rev Medwyn Griffiths, Anglican vicar of Badsworth, Pontefract has left strict instructions that there should be no words, no clergy and no mourners at his cremation.

Colleague Canon Roland Taylor was charged with carrying out the instructions, following the death of Rev Griffiths, aged 73.

Canon Taylor said: “During his ministry he had come across families who had left the Church because it had – quite rightly, in his view - refused to bury their unbaptised babies. In the instructions about his own disposal after death he said 
‘…It is in order to show such families that the funeral service does nothing for soul of the deceased that in death I wish to associate myself with their children, who are also redeemed.’”