No Subject

[Richard Cooper <rich@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk>]

Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa
Path: rich
From: rich@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Richard Cooper)
Subject: Re: GLC & Ken
Message-ID: <1992Jan8.100246.4369@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Organization: Glasgow University Computing Science Dept.
References: <9201071309.AA28790@pegasus1.hpl.hp.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1992 10:02:46 GMT
Lines: 46

Just to clear up some misapprehensions that have been appearing here.

GLC stood for the Greater London Council which governed the London
area between 1964 and the mid 80's.  It replaced the London County
Council which controlled inner London from the 1890's, extending its
authority to cover the whole metrolpolitan area.

The electrorate in London is not strongly biased to either party,
so control of the council continually switched between the two.
During the 70's it was led by the Tories who gradually let the
environment of the city deteriorate.

In 1980 (I think), Labour took over with a big victory.  They were
led into the election by a right winger called Andrew McIntosh, but
after the election the Labour Group immediately replaced him with a
left winger called Ken Livingstone.

Livingstone presided over a council that began to turn things around
in London dramatically.  They instituted programs which began to
clean up the city and provide creative employment for the populace, and
London began to look like it might become a tolerable place to live in.
This approach was diametrically opposed to that of the Thatcher
government whose only interest was in letting people make money and
lots of it.  Therefore the Tories decided to abolish the GLC, leading
with the kind of hate campaign in the press, which makes Fleet
Street so despised these days.

There were two main reasons for this:

  i) The GLC prevented the large scale exploitation of the environment
      and the people of London by large scale business interests.

  ii) Livingstone was clearly a much more effective leader of the
      Labour party than any other prominent member.  Given enough
      time, he would have posed a considerable threat in a
      natinal election.

The Comic Strip program about the GLC was a characature of this,
which almost too painfully accurate to be funny.

The fact that Kate Bush contributed to this demonstrates exactly
what might expect of any creative artist.  Firstly that her art is
more important than any political statement.  Secondly, that when
there are political statements they will be way left of centre.

rich