The BEST episodes of Panorama season 1985

#1 - Jasmine, A Death Too Many Last March

Season 1985 - Episode 30 - Aired 10/14/1985

Jasmine Beckford's stepfather was jailed for beating her to death. It was the first of a series of terrible cases of child abuse which have shocked the country this year. Jasmine was in care when she was killed. Social workers were her legal parents, but they only saw her once in the last 10 months of her life. A major public inquiry has just finished investigating Jasmine's case. Margaret Jay looks at Jasmine's life and the lessons to be drawn from her death.

#2 - When the Roof Falls In

Season 1985 - Episode 21 - Aired 6/24/1985

The number of home owners who can't pay the mortgage is rising sharply. Last year 11,000 families lost their homes when the building societies repossessed them. Millions more live in crumbling houses they can't afford to repair. As people struggle to buy their own homes, Richard Lindley talks to the families and old people who have found home ownership not a boon but a burden — and more than they can bear.

#3 - Selling Star Wars

Season 1985 - Episode 22 - Aired 7/15/1985

President Reagan believes his 'Star Wars' defence initiative may end the threat from nuclear weapons. His critics say that the massive research programme could upset the balance of terror with the Soviet Union and make war more likely. Tomorrow Vice-President Bush arrives in London, campaigning for support. Fred Emery reports on the debate, and discovers how scientists and businessmen on both sides of the Atlantic are getting in on the race for the new technology.

#4 - Family of Spies

Season 1985 - Episode 24 - Aired 7/8/1985

In America the biggest spy scandal for decades continues to unravel: already it threatens the security of Britain and the rest of NATO. Three members of the Walker family, and a friend, are accused of betraying to the Russians some of NATO's most sensitive and closely guarded secrets. For 20 years they had access to the vital details of submarine warfare - codes, communications and tactics - central to the nuclear deployments of the West. Tom Mangold reports on the gravity of the revelations for the USA and for Britain, and talks to some of the people involved in the case of the Family of Spies.

#5 - Live Aid's Desert Gamble

Season 1985 - Episode 24 - Aired 9/2/1985

Two months ago the Live Aid pop spectacular raised millions of pounds for famine relief in Africa. But the idea which caught the imagination of the world has now come face to face with reality. For in Sudan the truth is that the famine has been made much worse by human errors. Gavin Hewitt reports on the complex problems Live Aid and its organisers will have to overcome to make sure that the generosity of millions will not be squandered.

#6 - Doctor in a Hurry

Season 1985 - Episode 25 - Aired 9/9/1985

Asked who she thought would be the next Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher replied 'David Owen '. But how much do we really know about one of the most familiar faces in British politics? Dr Owen's opponents label him arrogant, ambitious, and unprincipled. He claims he's courageous and tough, but tender. At the SDP conference Michael Cockerell presents a revealing profile of the party's leader.

#7 - Prisons for Profit

Season 1985 - Episode 26 - Aired 9/16/1985

British prisons are bursting at the bars, and now hold 8,000 more inmates than they were built for. But in the United States, where overcrowding is just as bad, local authorities have come up with a bold breakthrough. They're allowing private industry to build and run their prisons. The result, as Tom Mangold reveals, is startling. Everyone interested in the problem, from Wall Street financiers, who are already making money from prisons, to the 'lifers' serving time inside them, is now debating the issue in earnest. Are 'prisons for profit' a new curse, or a possible cure for the intractable problems of our jails?

#8 - 23/09/1985

Season 1985 - Episode 27 - Aired 9/23/1985

#9 - Neil Appeal: The Relaunch of Labour

Season 1985 - Episode 28 - Aired 9/30/1985

In the general election two years ago Labour suffered one of the most crushing defeats in its history. Since then its new leader, Neil Kinnock, has embarked on an energetic campaign to modernise Labour's image, appearing on pop videos, importing American marketing techniques and streamlining the party's organisation. Today, as the party conference opens in Bournemouth, Labour has won back some of the ground it lost. But is it enough? Robert Harris has been behind the scenes with Neil Kinnock and his advisors, already preparing for the next general election.

#10 - Maggie's Market Forces

Season 1985 - Episode 29 - Aired 10/7/1985

What should the Tories do to get out of the slump they are in with the voters? Is it merely a matter, as Mrs Thatcher maintains, of getting the policies across better, of sharper marketing of basically the same policies or is pressure building up within the party for a change in policy? On the eve of the Tories' Conference in Blackpool, Fred Emery interviews both the Prime Minister, The Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher MP. and The Rt Hon Norman Tebbit MP, the new Tory Chairman. He also reports on the Tory mood around the country.

#11 - Nicaragua: Seeing Red

Season 1985 - Episode 19 - Aired 6/10/1985

President Reagan sees in Nicaragua a Communist tyranny which threatens the stability of Central America. The US Government back the guerrillas who are fighting to bring down the Sandinista regime and has imposed an economic embargo. Others in the West are more doubtful about the reality of the threat from Nicaragua. David Lomax reports from the front line of the mountain war in Nicaragua and from the US bases across the border in Honduras.

#12 - Aircrash - What Price Survival?

Season 1985 - Episode 32 - Aired 10/21/1985

In 1985 more people have already died in air crashes than in any previous year. At Manchester airport in August, 77 people escaped from a blazing jet, 54 did not. Are the airlines spending enough to ensure that their passengers have the best possible chance of living through the horror of an air crash?

#13 - 28/10/1985

Season 1985 - Episode 33 - Aired 10/28/1985

#14 - Poachers Turned Gamekeepers

Season 1985 - Episode 34 - Aired 11/4/1985

'London is now the fraud capital of the world and the profits are astronomical,' claims fraud investigator RICHARD JURGENSON. Police, lawyers and civil servants all agree that millions of pounds disappear through fraud every year in the City of London. Yet the detection and conviction rate, admits the Attorney-General, is 'disappointingly low'. Scandals at Lloyds, at the Stock Exchange and in the banks have revealed that at a time when fraud is becoming more complex, the policing of Britain's financial institutions is splintered and weak. Having failed to successfully defeat city crime, the government now proposes that the financiers should police themselves. 'A sure recipe for bigger frauds,' is the cynical conclusion of city insiders. Will Hutton reports on the new system where the poachers will become gamekeepers.

#15 - The Year of the Spy

Season 1985 - Episode 35 - Aired 11/11/1985

In London a senior Russian KGB officer defects: his tip-off traps a top KGB agent in Oslo. In Bonn the West German Head of Counterintelligence flees to the East, while in Rome a KGB colonel suddenly flees to the West. In the United States a KGB double agent vanishes: in Russia the CIA agent he betrays is arrested. Tom Mangold reveals what lies behind this complex pattern of defection and deceit: and looks at the impact of spy wars on next week's super-power summit and at which side is really winning in this extraordinary Year of the Spy.

#16 - The Summit Debate

Season 1985 - Episode 36 - Aired 11/18/1985

On the eve of the historic Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting in Geneva, Panorama brings young Russians and Americans together for a special debate. In an attempt to get behind the rhetoric, the Panorama team went to top American universities and to Moscow's foremost Study Institutes to choose young people who specialise in East-West relations and who will be shaping their countries foreign policy in the future. Fred Emery chairs the studio debate on the issues that the two leaders will be grappling with tomorrow.

#17 - Voices from the Ghetto

Season 1985 - Episode 37 - Aired 11/25/1985

In the wake of the violent riots this autumn, much has been said about policing and punishment in Britain's inner cities. But little has been heard from people who live in the affected areas. For the first time the people of Toxteth in Liverpool have allowed cameras in to film the everyday life in the ghetto.

#18 - AIDS - The Race for a Cure

Season 1985 - Episode 38 - Aired 12/2/1985

AIDS is the biggest public health threat for a generation. To date there have been a few hundred victims in Britain, but experts predict there will soon be many thousands. AIDS will affect men, women and children and, unless a cure is found, all those who get it will rapidly die. Doctors and scientists are desperately searching for a drug or a vaccine to knock out the virus. Will prevention - safer sex - prove better than a cure? Can alternative medicine bring hope to AIDS victims?

#19 - Whatever Happened to Solidarity?

Season 1985 - Episode 39 - Aired 12/9/1985

Four years ago this week martial law was imposed in Poland and the short-lived free trade union movement Solidarity was suppressed. Panorama has been back to Poland to discover that the underlying economic problems that fuelled the rise of Solidarity are as great as ever. The movement itself lives on underground, with the Church as the shield and the focus for the opposition. Robert Harris has talked to top Government ministers and to Solidarity leader Lech Walesa who is deeply pessimistic about Poland four years on from martial law.

#20 - Arafat: Paying the Price of Terror

Season 1985 - Episode 40 - Aired 12/16/1985

Yassar Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) are fighting for survival after the blunders and killings of the last few months. Arab backers are now telling Arafat to give up the gun and start talking. With the PLO in crisis Arafat admits to Panorama he now has few cards left to play. And, with the PLO's fighters scattered across the Middle East, Gavin Hewitt reports on how Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Gaza and the West Bank are no longer looking to the PLO but to themselves for resistance.

#21 - No Asylum?

Season 1985 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/11/1985

In night shelters and seedy guesthouses, some of the hundreds of mental patients discharged each year from hospital struggle against despair and neglect. Care in the community has been the great hope for the mentally ill, but with limited resources outside, has the policy of running down the old asylums gone too far too fast?

#22 - South Africa: The Black Mans' Burden

Season 1985 - Episode 31 - Aired 10/21/1985

A look at the effects of the Apartheid laws on the lives of black South Africans.

#23 - 07/01/1995

Season 1985 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/7/1985

Back on Speaking Terms After the deep freeze the United States and the Soviet Union are talking again in Geneva to try to halt the nuclear arms race. From Washington Peter Taylor reports on how a hawkish administration has got itself back round the table with the Russians, and in London Fred Emery discusses whether the talks can lead to a new agreement.

#24 - 14/01/1985

Season 1985 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/14/1985

#25 - The Politics of Plenty

Season 1985 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/21/1985

Starvation and drought have seized the conscience of the West: millions of pounds have been raised by ordinary people for the relief of the worst hit areas. But governments have followed different priorities and different objectives.While Marxist Ethiopia has received little Western aid, across the border in Kenya it's another story: billions of dollars have poured into a country whose government favours the West. But even then, there's a price to be paid. Panorama reports on the problems of the country the Americans have called 'the shining star of Africa'.