Prisoners of Thatcher’s Shadow
Originally published in LGC
It can’t have passed anyone’s attention that this week marked the centenary of Margaret Thatcher’s birth. Love her or loathe her, as the first female prime minister she broke the mould of the post-war consensus and the UK economy and society in many significant ways.
A YouGov poll conducted on Monday puts her head and shoulders above all other holders of the highest office in the last 50 years, with 29% rating her as the greatest prime minister overall – with Tony Blair next on 12% and Harold Wilson at 6%.
Her political legacy, which casts a long shadow over local government today, and will long into the future, began at home in Grantham.
Here in what is North Kesteven began the political journey of Margaret Hilda Roberts. Her adored father, town grocer Alderman Alfred Roberts, who sat as an Independent Ratepayer and supported Conservative constituency candidates, was elected Mayor of Grantham in 1945 in time for the end of war celebrations. His controversial displacement in 1952 as an alderman by Labour councillor Len Audus – the protocol was that aldermen were re-elected unopposed – would bring tears to Lady Thatcher’s eyes in a television interview some thirty years later.
For some analysts, this humiliation established the psychological framing and antagonistic emotional landscape through which Thatcher would treat with local government. In particular, during the Thatcher years, most of urban local government was, to quote her phrase if ‘not one of us’ at least against her.
Whether it was Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council (GLC) highlighting national unemployment figures from across Westminster Bridge in County Hall or Sheffield City Council declaring itself a nuclear free zone at a time of cold war tensions, little love was lost.
Thatcher’s revenge came in her second term. With a 1983 general election manifesto pledge to be rid of them, and a government white paper ‘Streamlining the cities’ setting up the case for their demise on the grounds of inefficiency and overspending, the GLC and the Metropolitan County Councils were abolished at midnight on 31 March 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985.
Powers held by the GLC were farmed out to London’s boroughs and other agencies – leaving London without strategic governance until the first wave of Tony Blair’s devolutionary settlements at the start of the millennium. The strategic powers of the Labour run MCCs – which comprised Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South and West Yorkshire, Tyneside and the West Midlands – were passed down to metropolitan boroughs or joint boards until resurrected as combined authorities by the Coalition government.