Political commentary
An evil and mighty force
Stephen Fay
On Monday the monitor showing the business of the moment in the House of Commons described the remarkable hap- pening in Her Majesty's bedroom with modesty: 'Buckingham Palace (Incident)', it read. As incidents go, this one was marvellously instructive. We recalled, for instance, the convention of the British aristocracy that man and wife sleep in separate bedrooms. In the House itself, we were reminded that Willie Whitelaw can say nothing faster than any living politican, and that Roy Hattersley's performance as a deeply responsible spokesman really does deserve an Evening Standard Best Suppor- ting Actor Award to sit alongside Granada's gong for the Columnist of the Year. The exchanges on the floor of the House revealed Eldon Griffiths's grasp of modern technology when he insisted that 'thermal intensification devices' would im- prove the early-warning capacity of Buck- ingham Palace. We also had a brief lecture in contemporary criminology from the Conservative member for South Croydon, the willowy Sir William Clark, who made a moving appeal: 'I hope we won't have a lot of do-gooders saying it wasn't his fault.'
The most pertinent interventions in the House of Commons have a general as well as a specific relevance, and so it is with Sir William, because while Michael Fagan, 31, was allegedly stealing one half-bottle of wine (property of the Department of the Environment) Michael Foot, 68, was com- mitting an act which may subsequently cause his own behaviour to be judged, and perhaps se, erely. Though his apologists will no doubt also argue that it wasn't his fault.
No less baffling than Fagan's intrusion was Foot's entering into the Aslef dispute last weekend. On Saturday morning the Labour leader's office released a speech Foot proposed making to the Durham Miners' Gala. The text accused the British Railways Board of picking fight.) with the National Union of Railwaymen and with the engine drivers. 'Aslef offered a sensible way out of the problem, but the Board, with the government pushing them, were adamant that they would have a strike, and they got one,' said Foot. Or, rather, that is what he meant to say, but in fact the wordy lefties rambled on at such length about the coming revolution that Foot took pity on the miners and their families and, in cutting his speech, did not get to the paragraph about the railways. However, Foot's un- conditional support for Aslef was noted in London, first by Sunday's papers, and then by the leader's colleagues in the Shadow Cabinet, many of whom were appalled by what they thought of as Foot's misalliance with the most unrcpentent Luddites in
British industry.
This development did not happen by ac- cident. Ray Buckton, the charmless general secretary of the drivers' union (it would be a mistake to describe him as its leader) had softened up the left with a bizarre rhetorical outburst at the Transport Committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Buckton likened Aslef to Belgium in 1914 (which was only five years before the inflexible roster- ing of the eight-hour day became the rule on the railways), picturing the union as a small power being crushed by an evil and mighty force.
This analogy with the brutal Hun seemed ungenerous to Sir Peter Parker, the chair- man of the less than might force known as the British Railways Board, who has always appeared to be the opposite of violent: a softy from way back. But Buckton argued nonetheless that the chairman's intention was to destroy brave little Aslef. (The em- barrassment of having Aslef drivers turn up for work caused Buckton no trouble at all; these quislings, he explained, were all members of the National Front). The lefties on the Transport Committee, never much interested in logic or facts, swallowed Buckton whole, but so, too, did Albert Booth, who, as the Party's spokesman on transport, has advised Foot on the Party line. And should Foot have entertained a moment's doubt, it would have been eradicated by his new speech writer, Dick Clements, for whom Buckton is in the perfect Tribunite image of a union leader.
In every industrial dispute each side con- structs a defence which makes it sound like the soldiers of a just war, so as to invest its supporters with a sense of righteousness. This makes it difficult to consider any dispute dispassionately, but the Board does insist that an emollient proposal by its director of industrial relations to Buckton was not relayed to the union executive at a vital moment, and Buckton has apparently ceased to deny this charge. Moreover, before Aslef submitted to arbitration its case against flexible rostering and the end of the eight-hour day, Len Murray, the TUC's general secretary, insisted that the full majesty of the trade union movement would be brought to bear on the drivers to make them accept the arbiter's conclusions. The arbiter concluded that flexible roster- ing should be implemented forthwith, but there has been no sight of the full majesty of the trade unions. (It is difficult, isn't it, to imagine anyone climbing into Murray's bedroom for a chat over half a bottle of wine and a cigarette?) None of this evidence deterred Michael Foot when he raised the subject of the strike at last week's Shadow Cabinet meeting.
The leader insisted that there was more to Aslef's case than met the eye: the Board was refusing to negotiate and the lads should not be let down. The Foot line was mildly supported by Neil Kinnock and Stan Orme, and vigorously opposed by Brynmor John and Peter Shore, who pointed out that the Railwaymens' Union is not only disenchanted by Aslef, but is much larger. They might have added that it also con- tributes a great deal more money to the bankrupt Party.
At the end of the discussion there was no summing up; no suggestion that support for Aslef should be the formal policy of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Most Shadow Cabinet members thought they had merely talked around the subject. When Foot's Durham speech was reported on Sunday morning, many of them were scarcely less appalled than the members of the British Railways Board. Aslef had scored points in the propaganda battle.
Of course Michael Foot has been told that the drivers are literally insupportable. But such practical considerations do not move the leader of the Labour Party. He simply is convinced of the virtue of cam- paigning democracy; Foot believes if he travels the nation addressing people on the subject of Aslef's rightness, the message will eventually permeate the consciousness of the electorate — though this thesis does depend on his actually speaking long enough to get to the message.
And if any further justification for his support were needed, Mrs Thatcher provid- ed it last week when she praised the small minority of drivers who had clocked on. The British Railways Board, while grateful for Prime Ministerial support, would have preferred that she had not been so public about it. (How different, incidentally, is her behaviour compared to Sir Winston Chur- chill's. Her oracle disapproved of railway strikes because men could not get home to their wives. Lord Butler, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, reports a late-night telephone call from Sir Winston during the 1953 rail crisis: 'Walter (Monckton) and I have settled the rail strike so you won't be troubled any more,' said the Prime Minister. 'On what terms have you settled it?' asked Butler. 'Theirs, old cock. We didn't like to keep you up.') Assuming that Foot's naive and seri' timental support for Aslef does not sudden- ly persuade commuters to start clutching picketing drivers to their bosoms, it will have the effect of confirming the suspicion that Labour is the party of the industrial militants: the steps from Foot's promotion of Aslef's case to Arthur Scargill's dady strike threat, and to Tony Benn, may no longer seem large in the minds of electors who have voted Labour all their lives.
If they stop voting Labour, it will be 11° use a lot of left-wingers saying it wasn't Michael Foot's fault. Perhaps it would help if someone could be persuaded to donate a thermal intensification device for his e%. elusive use.
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