London’s Ours! Images from the Greater London Council 1981-1986 (book review)

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the end of one of London’s fiercest political battles of modern times. On one side the Iron Lady, on the other Red Ken. To remind us of not just that particular battle but also some of the issues and activities taking place in the first half the 1980s, comes this new book London’s Ours! Images from the Greater London Council 1981-1986.

The Greater London Council (GLC) took office in 1965 as the local government of London. It replaced the London County Council (LCC), which since 1889 had been governing London. At the same time, the map of London was redrawn. The new Greater London extended the capital’s borders beyond the former County of London, appropriating parts of the surrounding counties. Within the new, expanded city, boroughs were amalgamated into 32 larger entities, plus the City of London, as it remains today. The GLC based itself at County Hall on the Lambeth bank of the Thames in what had been the headquarters of the LCC.

Every few years Londoners in each borough went to the polls to choose two councillors to represent them on the GLC, with candidates normally on the same lines as national parties. The party with the majority of councillors had effective control of the GLC and selected its leader, very much in the style of national government. Over the course of the life of the GLC there were six elections, with control alternating between Labour and Conservatives.

A major political obstacle that prevented either side achieving its aims in London was that the party in control of the GLC at Lambeth was usually the opposite of that in power at Westminster. And so it was in 1981 when Labour took control of the GLC from the Conservatives. London’s politics would then probably have continued in much the same, rather dull way under the incoming moderate Labour leader of the GLC, Andrew McIntosh. Except it didn’t.

London’s Labour party was itself divided internally between McIntosh’s moderates and a more radical wing led by Ken Livingstone. The day after Labour’s victory in the polls, the radicals called for a leadership election, which the charismatic Livingstone won. Thus began a five-year war between two major opponents with very different political and social views: the right-of-centre Conservative Margaret Thatcher in No. 10 Downing Street, and the socialist Ken Livingstone and his chosen team in County Hall.

Many of the policies of the GLC under Livingstone were what you would expect from a Labour administration: an increase in public services, more social housing, lower public transport fares, and other efforts to ease the life of those on lower incomes, all paid for by raising money from increased property taxes. But what made this GLC stand out from those of its Labour predecessors was its vocal, financial and material support of London’s minorities, its popular public events and arts festivals, and its strong messaging. They came to power at a time when many in the capital had grown up with the idealism of the 1960s, mixed with the punk-sensibilities of the ‘70s. There was conflict between the Afro-Caribbean communities and the Metropolitan Police that led to the 1981 Brixton riot. Committees were established by the GLC for women’s groups and the gay and ethnic communities. Supporters hailed this as the ‘Rainbow Coalition’, while detractors viewed the GLC as extremists, and mocked them as the ‘Loony Left’. There was support for the Republicans in Northern Ireland, London was declared a ‘nuclear-free zone’, and Livingstone refused to attend the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Unemployment was rising in the country, with many putting the blame directly on the policies of the Conservative government. The GLC erected a large banner on top of County Hall, facing across the river to the Houses of Parliament, giving the number of unemployed in London, with the number updated each month.

Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative’s vision was diametrically opposite to that of the GLC. They believed in regeneration of London through financial deregulation and free market capitalism, less spending on public services, and inward investment from overseas over rebuilding homegrown industry. It was a time of upwardly-mobile ‘yuppies’, well-healed ‘Sloane Rangers’, the Big Bang, and plans for the new sky-scrapers of Canary Wharf, while much of Inner London struggled with unemployment, poor infrastructure and social issues such as racism.

The graphic imagery of the late 1970s and ‘80s British socialism, demonstrated, for example, in that of the Rock Against Racism movement, was bold, striking and highly-engaging. And so it was from the GLC under Ken Livinstone. This new, beautifully produced and well-captioned large format book of over 200 pages, contains numerous visual images from the Greater London Council that were deposited within the London Archives. It demonstrates how the GLC of the time used its messaging as a tool to promote its activities and events, its support of minority communities, as well as political, ideological and social views.

Focuses by the GLC shown in the book were for the anti-nuclear campaign, unemployment, anti-racism and the GLC’s ethnic minority arts events, public transport fares, and LGBT activism. There were campaigns to gain more control of the Metropolitan Police and against Conservative government funding cuts. Photos in the book include murals commissioned by the GLC.

In the same year that the Livingstone GLC came into being, the government formed the London Docklands Development Corporation to regenerate the areas of East and South London blighted by the closure of the docks and wharves. It would eventually lead to the creation of the Canary Wharf business district, many expensive apartment buildings, and London City Airport. The chapter in the book ‘Docklands for the people: Give us back our land!’ deals with the GLC’s support for the local population’s alternative plan for Docklands, including the posters and other graphics featured.

Margaret Thatcher declared the GLC as “big spenders of other people’s money”. London’s more Conservative outer boroughs never supported the GLC and believed they could manage more efficiently without the need for a London-wide administration. The Conservative manifesto for the 1983 General Election therefore included the promise to abolish the GLC, along with the country’s other five metropolitan county councils. In 1985 Parliament narrowly voted to do just that, cancelling the GLC elections of that year, and setting a date in 1986 for the body to come to an end. The chapter ‘GLC abolition’, features the GLC’s imaginative poster campaign to prevent its demise. When it became a foregone conclusion, the GLC responded with a major poster campaign with messaging such as “FROM NOW YOU HAVE NO SAY IN WHO RUNS LONDON”.

After its abolition, the powers and obligations of the GLC were devolved to around a hundred different organisations, including boards and local boroughs. Its assets were transferred to the newly-created London Residuary Body, who subsequently sold County Hall to a Japanese company. It has since been transformed into two hotels, the London Aquarium, the London Dungeon, and an amusement arcade. Hidden deep inside the building, behind locked doors, remains what had been the debating chamber of the LCC and then the GLC.

After the Thatcher years, in the country as a whole there was a shift away from both left wing and Thatcherite attitudes. The more centrist New Labour under Tony Blair swept to power with a large majority of seats in Parliament in the 1997 General Election. In a referendum, Londoners were asked to vote on whether they wanted a new authority for London. There was a two-thirds majority in favour. The Greater London Authority was therefore established in 2000, headed by an elected Mayor of London (not to be confused with the ceremonial Lord Mayor of the City of London). The GLA was not a direct replacement for its predecessors however, its powers, responsibilities and resources reduced in comparison to the London County Council and Greater London Council. Far greater oversight, and much of the power to administer London, were retained by Central Government.

Ken Livingstone decided to put himself up for election as the Mayor of London but his candidacy as the Labour candidate was blocked by Tony Blair. He therefore stood as an Independent and won the election to become the first Mayor of Greater London. He was subsequently elected for a second term in 2004 but, after serving for eight years, lost the 2008 election to the Conservative candidate Boris Johnson.