FIRST OFF . . .

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher denied Tuesday that she ordered the seizure of sensitive materials from the British Broadcasting Corp. In heated exchanges in Parliament following weekend police raids on the BBC’s Glasgow, Scotland, offices, Thatcher rejected opposition charges that she was operating a “second-rate police state” bent on muzzling the press. “This was clearly a criminal case under the Official Secrets Act,” Thatcher said of the seizure of material for a six-part series on intelligence and other secret government activity in Britain. “The government does not give orders to the police or the courts as to how or when the law should be applied,” Thatcher said, drawing opposition jeers. Opposition parties joined in condemning the raid, which Liberal leader David Steel compared to events in Communist-ruled East Europe. “This is not the sort of Britain we want to live in,” he said.