Politics
Naught for Aidan Comfort
We are already familiar with those popular political characters, Solo- mon Binding, a Labour man, and Laura Norder, a definitely Conservative lady. Now please welcome a third — Aidan Comfort. Aidan is someone who gets given to people. For some reason he is a gift which tends to reflect discredit on the giver. According to Mrs Thatcher in her rather successful showing in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Mr Kinnock is giving Aidan Comfort to the leaders of the NUM: perhaps it is because she regards him as such a raffish character that she refuses to give him to those who want to use the law to hasten the end of the miners' strike.
Two small firms from the Forest of Dean have dared to use the law which controls picketing. George Read Transport and Richard Read Transport have invoked legislation which, although it introduced much of it, this Government prefers to leave alone. British Rail and British Steel and the National Coal Board, all of whom have strong legal cases, have sat quiet and left it to the Read family. The only other people who have had the temerity to seek the protection of the civil law during the present dispute are some Nottinghamshire miners. Comparatively ordinary citizens seem to be much readier than the mighty to defend their rights.
This is because they have to. If you are Mr Haslam of the British Steel Corpora- tion or Mr Ian MacGregor, or, come to that, Mr Peter Walker, the miners' strike, however grim, is something that you ex- pect to survive. Not so Read Transport or Nottinghamshire miners who are pushed out of their union. The fact that such naturally unlitigious people have recourse to the law shows how desperate they are and how much the law's protection mat- ters. It appears that the Government is relying on such people's courage and desperation to do its work for it.
Ministers advance various justifications for inaction. There is still some belief that the NUM would not lose in court. The miners' strike is, after all, a 'legitimate trade dispute', in that it is an argument about jobs, pay and conditions between employer and employee. Some of the industrial action is legal — the NUM can get away, for example, with blacking coal to power stations because the CEGB is a first customer. Still, there is more besides. Aslefs blacking of stocks from the CEGB is clearly secondary and clearly illegal. The NUM's flying pickets certainly break the controls on picketing (let alone the code of practice) because they do not operate 'at or near their own place of work'. The Coal Board got an early injunc- tion against Yorkshire pickets in Notting- hamshire for just this reason, but has taken it no further.
The next Government argument is that nothing should be done which would en- courage anything resembling a general strike — the dockers' strike was Mr Scar- gill's best moment so far, and he should not be given another one. British Steel and British Rail agree. Their unions are either on their side or almost powerless to stop their members from carrying on as normal. A court action might fine Aslef, but it might also cause a 'day of action' or something worse, so why bother? The trouble is that this argument is extended to oppose action against the NUM itself. No one is more of an expert, in his own view, on the lore and language of miners than a Tory minister: 'You can push them only so far, you know. It's all right to attack Scargill, but once you bring the law down on them, they'll put the union first. The last thing we want is anything that would get Nottinghamshire out'. In the Tory myth, Nottinghamshire miners are like the tribesmen whom travel writers describe as 'proud and independent', in other words, terrifying and unreliable: ingratiate yourselves with them, but leave them alone. And a similar expertise warns of the danger of upsetting the delicate balance of the whole trade union movement. Union leaders, apparently, constantly assure ministers that Mr Scargill is equally their enemy, and wants to destroy them as much as the Government and Coal Board; so, these ministers argue, don't use the law to attack him, or TUC leaders will be forced by their militants to support the NUM in defying the law. But didn't we go through this with Mr Eddie Shah, and wasn't everything all right? And even if the TUC did support the breaking of the law, would it emerge with credit or strength for doing so? Would its members support it?
One suspects that this is one of the many occasions when ignorance improves judg- ment. Those of us who do not have illicit beer and sandwiches or, to be more accu- rate, wine and scallops, with the great men of the TUC, may question whether their whispers to their lunch companions mean very much. Those of us who have never met a single Nottinghamshire miner may wonder why they should be so different from the rest of humanity. Notts miners are working, and they are attacked, often physically, for doing so. They are prepared to sacrifice that famous miners' solidarity' to work. They are even ready to call on the law themselves. Why should it upset them if the organisation for which they work actually took steps to protect them?
Of course politicians very reasonably prefer that industrial disputes should 'settle themselves'. A minister has only to announce an Initiative to attract blame for failures which he could never, in fact, have prevented. In this case, the Government has calculated that it can wait. As the Sunday Times explained last week in what looked like a prompting from Mr Walker, coal stocks can probably last beyond next winter. Under such pressure, it is assumed, the strike will break. But if that is the policy, the failure to use the civil law is still more puzzling. Messrs Prior and Tebbit used every contrivance to make sure that the invocation of their laws could not be a matter which directly involved the Govern- ment. If the Coal Board took the NUM to court, the Government could remain as distant as it is now. Indeed a civil action in some respects lowers the tension. The present policy has to be sustained by huge numbers of police. For the seizure of assets you only need to send four men from Price Waterhouse over the top.
Many ministers may be polite enough to go most of the way with this argument, but at the end they still object. 'Ah', they say, 'you may be right. But why should we run the risks involved in finding out? Time is on our side. We need not frown on the action of the Reads, but we can wait to see what emerges from it'. It will, of course, be splendid if the caution is justified. Nothing could be better than the return of strikers against NUM instructions, with the conse- quent humiliation of Mr. Scargill. But if it does not happen? Whatever the state of stocks, tension will increase with the onset of winter. Whatever the poverty of indi- vidual strikers, an unfined and unseques- trated union will remain powerful, and so, therefore, will its leaders. Contrary to Government belief, TUC and Labour lead- ers at their autumn conferences will find it much harder to support a union that is declared in breach of the law than one simply 'fighting for jobs'. How well could the Government manage another run on the pound, or another major strike?
Worst of all, there is the chance that Government and Coal Board could split. If months more pass, the Coal Board's offer will seem more and more ridiculously generous to the Government, and the Coal Board, more interested in mining than politics, will begin to complain if it is held back from making a deal with the miners. Mr MacGregor, or, if not he, his subordin- ates like Mr Ned Smith, might become more impatient with Mrs Thatcher than Mr Scargill, and might say so. But if the Coal Board uses the courts it goes too far for any more dangerous parley with the NUM. If Mr Scargill is wily, he will summon Aidan Comfort and start to give him, in a surreptitious sort of way, to the frustrated managers in Hobart House.
Charles Moore
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