VC at the gate
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John V. C. Butcher, who lives in Nlarsham Street, Westminster, hard by the Department of Transport, is a brave man. In August, 1977, he formed a one-man picket outside the Grunwick factory peacefully to persuade people to work there. He should be John Butcher, VC.
In a letter to the Financial Times he suggested that if work pickets posted themselves outside blockaded factories, the police would require them to stand on one side of the gate and the strike pickets on the other. This would leave a convenient gap in the centre for vehicles to drive in and out.
I seem to remember Government ministers reinforcing the strike pickets outside the Grunwick factory but none had the courage to give practical expression to the Government's disapproval of secondary picketing by lorry drivers by counter-picketing. I cannot visualise the Prime Minister's crossing a picket line if it was going to cost him his job, whatever his convictions.