To Parliament!

The London cabby is a very special Briton. For the reckless abandon of the Paris taximan, the invective flow of the Cairo driver, the proletarian dynamism of the Moscow hackman--who, even before the German invasion, drove his car as if it were a tank--the London cabby substitutes a shatterproof Cockney calm. Last week that calm was somewhat ruffled. The London cabby had his back up. He had decided to enter politics.

In a smoke-filled attic of London's trade-union building near Marylebone Station, 70 of the city's 6,000 taximen solemnly resolved that what cabbies needed was their own M.P.--someone in the House of Commons to get them : 1 ) a taxi transport board; 2) "every man his own cab." Cried Alf Wheeler of Hornsey, hoarsely: "Give us a bit of the democracy we ruddy cabbies 'ave braved the blackout for."

But most of the convening cabbies retained their caustic composure. When elderly Bill Cox told them that their powerful Transport and General Workers' Union frowned on sectional representation because it already had 16 members in Parliament, the cabbies overrode him, voted to go ahead. Grunted Spokesman Ted Morland of Fulham: "It's abaht time our ruddy trade got a look in. I wouldn't mind getting on me hind legs meself and telling ol' Winnie wot he ought to do abaht us."

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