WESTM NS TER HAUL
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What would Parliament have done without the transport strike? For that matter, what would the strikers have done without Parliament?
Parliament would have wended its weary way towards the General Election. The strikers would have had their importance somewhat deflated. To be brutally honest, what a waste of time the Parliamentary affair was. Everyone there was all agog — but all knew that there was nothing they could — or would — do. Except talk.
True, there could have been some momentous moments. A state of emergency could have been announced, for instance — or the Prices Secretary could have given his news about transport charges. But neither happened and so the Commons — and to a lesser extent the Lords — became what it has so often been called, "a talking shop".
Ministers made soothing noises and occasional warnings; Tories sounded off furiously and trotted out examples of unreasonable picketing; left-wingers had a simple solution: "pay the lads".
But it was always painfully obvious that effective decisions would be taken in the harsh, real outside world.
There were some entertaining moments, however. Take those occasions when Mrs. Thatcher, making what Mr. Callaghan described as "a most effective parliamentary performance" was happy to let left-inclined MPs interrupt her speech.
"Honourable Members are being most helpful," she observed — did her shaft get home to stalwart Joe Ashton, who told her that the 1972 Saltley coke depot picketing might have been illegal, but it worked from the union point of view?
Then there was that human moment when Tory spokesman James Prior declined an argument with Enoch Powell, and answered the challenge "Why not?" with "Because I might come out of it the worse."
But surely Chancellor Denis Healey was speaking more in sorrow than in anger when he waded into the Tory leader, charging her with having the skill of the demagogue, in recognising public feeling and giving it voice . . . "by inflaming emotions , particularly the emotions of fear and hatred."
Giving voice to public feeling can win general elections — as Mr Callaghan admitted when he gave a pep talk to the Parliamentary Labour Party.