Shutting Down. Aylesbury

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DI eti sta et: an tw We res rea an!

Alan Stephens reports from last Friday's ASLEF picket in Aylesbury, one of the few stations that ASLEF scabs were still working from.

ETERMINED, vocal picking. began at Aylesbury ation from 4am. The picks, mostly from Kings Cross id Euston, had set out at 'o in the morning, and ere determined to get sults.

As the first of the media roes, the 'ASLEF rebels', gan to arrive, all attempts talk to them were rebuffwith insults. The police esence grew, and the cops ere obviously straining for tion.

Four of the scab drivers appeared from the station d started to abuse the kpritin.:

WALTER Johnson has hitherto been best known for his claim that Michael Foot's duffle-coat would lose Labour over a million votes at the next election. Now he insists that it was the effect of rail strikes on London's suburban comnext?

SID Weighell of the NUR, and Derbyshire South MP Walter Johnson have attacked Foot's support for ASLEF - his first pro-working class remarks this year.

Weighell accused Foot of ignoring the facts. Foot should watch out. After all, Weighell only recently urged the NEC of the Labour Party to widen the witch-hunt to include Benn. Why stop there?

Foot burned at the stake amid a pyre of blazing railway sleepers?

pickets. "There are 28 of us here, and we don't give a fuck about you" , one shouted. "There's 24,000 of us, and your union cards will be gone at the end of this"

came the swift response.

After shouting at the pickets, the majority of whom were under 25, that they "weren't worth shitting on" , one of the scabs went on to explain that he was older and wiser than them.

He didn't get a chance.

"I'm more of a trade unionist than you'll ever , shouted Tricia, member of the ASLEF branch committee at Kings Cross.

Infiltrate

Later we spoke to And Johnson, Kings Cross branc secretary. "The Daily Mai said at midnight that ther would be 100 pickets a Aylesbury - they printer the story before the picke had even begun. They have obviously sent somebody tc WAUN muters that lost last election.

Johnson is former president of the TSSA, the white collar rail union. Perhaps Johnson would have liked it to be white collar and tails.

Labour Party headquarters yesterday failed to deny malicious rumours emanating exclusively from the SO office that Walter Johnson had suggested that the next party political broadcast should consist of a filmed train ride from Tunbridge Wells to Waterloo by the complete troop of Labour MPs, men in tuxedos with tails and women in evening dresses with Thatcher-blue hairdos.

SDP Perhaps if his suggestion is not heeded, he will follow another former TSSA president Tom Bradley MP out of the Labour Party to the SDP. After all, they're a well turned out lot and they even hold conferences on trains!

infiltrate out st headquarters. They've in taken pictures of memb arriving and leaving"

• Police Steve Good, assistan branch secretary, comment ed: "We'll have to make sur we give them more picket to rant about. Today th police were here already They've ever attempted tr limit the picketing to twi people!

"You can tell that thes are out to make arrests ir this dispute"

Ten more pickets arrived and Ken Price from Eustor told us about their success there. "Only one bloke tried to go through. He was an ASLEF man, and we per suaded him not to go in"

This was greeted with cheers, and another chorus of the pickets anthem:

"Blacklegs strive to make the country tick/ But they bloody make us sick"

(Full lyrics in next • 'THIS is a narrow, stupid, sectional dispute," frothed Weighell referring to ASLEF's fight. Just the right words to describe ... Weighell's and Johnson's dispute with the train drivers.

TWO other Labour MPs have attacked Foot's stand. One is Peter Shore who is Shadow Chancellor and will soon be making a bid to become Party leader. The other is Brynmor John, the Party's social security spokesperson, better remembered as the Defence spokesperson who was moved after he attacked the Party's policy on defence.

According to this pair, the Labour Opposition is "too partisan,"!

week's Socialist Organiser! ^ Driver Ray Timpson reported on the situation at the Cricklewood depot. "Six blokes went in at the start, until we got the picketing organised. We've now got the scabs down to two. One of them is putting in by phone from Bedford. In normal times BR don't allow this"

We asked Ray what he thought of BR's tactics and the Edwardes-style sacking threats.

"If it comes, then surely we've got to have some backing from the TUC. All of us should ignore it and stay out"

The pressure on the TUC should begin now for action.

to be organised should just one ASLEF or NUR member be sacked. Meanwhile, full support and solidarity pickets in defiance of the Tory laws must go ahead so that we get more headlines like the Oxford Mail's in response, to the picketing at Aylesbury: "First blood to the pickets"

PERSONALLY, I'm not surprised a prowler managed t get into the Queen's bedroom. As an unemployed person on a dole queue pittance he probably just wanted to talk to ER II about how he might be able to get the kind of social security money she was on.

Everything fits. Think

of his opening remark: 'Have you got a cigarette?' These are hardly the words of a criminal caught in the act. Then ER II tells him to call for her footman. A footpad wouldn't fall for this line about the footman. Obviously the bloke thought he was about to get a job on the palace staff. Cruel blow then when instead of an interview he gets arrested.

AS FOR Whitelaw's shock, I'm not surprised. One look at his eyes shows that he has been spending long nights under ER II's bed with the corgis - fidgety little beasts - trying to stay awake to catch any intruders. No wonder he feels a failure!