Manchester

MANCHESTER The Labour-dominated city council of this Midland metropolis is indulging in causes that shock its minuscule though vocal Conservative minority. There was an "open weekend" recently for lesbians at the town hall, as the council appropriated 118,000 sterling pounds ($168,000) for a new Gay Centre.

A large exhibit explaining the situation in Namibia greeted children returning to primary and secondary schools after a vacation break, and at Christmas, the city's official greeting card will carry a portrait of Nelson Mandela, jailed leader of the African National Congress. The council-sponsored Police Monitoring Unit, which has a budget of 190,000 sterling pounds ($270,000), has issued a twenty-page comic book to children and youth workers showing how the police abuse their powers. And the armed forces have been excluded from public festivities, while two members of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, have been given a full civic reception. A delegation of the council is going to visit Nicaragua next month, and from now on only Nicaraguan coffee will be served at the town hall. Mrs. Val Stevens, a majority council member, says that Manchester "is one of the few socialist councils which is putting its head above the parapet in terms of progressive policy."

COPYRIGHT 1986 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning