Ken Livingstone and the Labour GLC have suffered an onslaught of vilification from the establishment media in the last fifteen months. There has also been some constructive criticism of the GLC's record from the left. Ken Livingstone replies to a recent article in International.
Tessa van Gelderen's article 'Reds at County Hall' in International Vol 7 No 3 argues that without a mass base within the trade unions then Labour GLCs and governments will not be in a position to resist the power of Capital in the struggle to implement their manifesto. She analyses, I think correctly, the weakness of the Left both in London and nationally in that it is based primarily in the constituency Labour parties and not in the trade unions. She also puts into perspective the manifesto on which the GLC was elected as a reformist document.
When the manifesto was drawn up and finally voted on by the Greater London Labour Party conference it was limited to a series of proposals the Party knew could be achieved. Because government had taken control of the capital programmes of councils (new building of houses, schools, buses etc) the manifesto promises were slanted towards revenue expenditure (wages, staffing, subsidies to fares and rents).
The conference accepted the logic that high rate spending by the GLC was in itself a mechanism for the redistribution of wealth. Of every £1 raised in rates one third comes from commercial ratepayers in the cities of London and Westminster, and another one third from industry and commerce in the rest of London. No Labour government has ever come close to funding a majority of its social programmes by taxing Capital rather than Labour, and it is this very favourable balance in London that meant that the average London Transport user still benefited massively from reduced fares although their rates were increased both by government penalties as well as the cost of subsidising fares.
It was our determination to continue with our programme which led to Heseltine's attempt to get legislation which would have given him control of our entire budget. It is because he was defeated in this attempt and because we are still increasing our spending in line with the manifesto that the government is preparing legislation for the abolition of the GLC. The Tories intend to make this a manifesto commitment at the next general election so that the GLC can be abolished before the end of its term in May 1985. The fact that the government has made so many attempts to block the GLC programme, and the press and judges have mounted such an onslaught suggests that they consider the GLC to have been more of a threat than many of our comrades on the Left believe.
My main criticism of Tessa's article is not her conclusion, which is correct, but that the analysis is unduly negative. We have made considerably more progress on the manifesto than we are given credit for. We have restarted the housing programme building 1000 more than the Tories planned. We have campaigned for more resources from government although this campaign tended to be overtaken and swamped by the fares campaign. The Direct Labour organisation has been saved and the threatened 1800 redundancies of building and housing staff has been averted by the creation of London Community Builders which has been found adequate work with a major expansion of modernisation and maintenance.
There were some areas of the manifesto, such as housing, where commitments were vague. It is therefore wrong to say that 'rents were to be frozen'. The commitment was to freeze rents for a year and then increase them in line with management and maintenance costs. This was done and rents and expenditure were brought into balance by a massive increase in expenditure on maintenance.
Tessa writes that 'virtually no progress has been made on the 35 hour week for manual staff and the Greater London Enterprise Board, intended to create jobs, remains on the drawing board.' Labour members keep pressing the manual unions to put in a claim for a 35 hour week but although there has been a reduction of one hour agreed nationally so far none of the manual unions wishes to break away from the national negotiating structure (on which the GLC has one vote) and do a Camden-style agreement.
The Greater London Enterprise Board has been established and the budget increased from under half a million pounds last year to over £40m this year. At the moment the GLC is involved in three major factories trying to keep the firms afloat. Other aspects of the GLC's work are going ahead: a ten percent increase in spending in real terms for each committee. There has been a tremendous response from gay, feminist and black groups to our anti-discrimination and grants policies. For the first time the labour movement in London is seen to have relevance to these groups that we have ignored for so long.
Part of our problem is that many activists assume that because the GLC gets so much publicity it must have major powers. The truth is that our powers are limited in many ways. We can only break the laws when it is a matter of refusing to comply with some government or court instruction. A positive decision to initiate some action that was illegal would be ignored by council officers who do not gain legal immunity because they are 'only following orders'.
Our weakness was highlighted with the Tube workers pay claim in June 1981 when we announced that we would underwrite any pay agreement but had no power to instruct the London Transport on any matter of day to day management. The London Transport Act gives operational control to the Executive and the GLC's powers are restricted to setting the budget. If we had operational control we would not only have agreed the pay claim but we would have instructed the London Transport Executive to remove all sexist advertising and to introduce women-only carriages in line with demands from the women's movement.
We have had a series of campaigns on housing, employment, nuclear disarmament and most importantly on fares. The GLC has spent nearly £2m in campaigning for our policies. Some 12 million copies of the Londoner newspaper have been distributed, and hundreds of thousands of leaflets, press advertising and dozens of public meetings have been organised. Other members and myself have spoken at hundreds of meetings on the fares campaign as well as at union, Labour Party and other public meetings.
Tessa urges us to openly support those trade unions which are in struggle. But we are doing this already. Labour members issue statements and join picket lines whether it is the NUR or ASLEF dispute, Wandsworth dustmen, Staffa workers, waiters in restaurants, Foyles staff, or disputes outside London. The Group has voted to donate £25,000 to the health workers' strike fund and has been represented at many picket lines.
Activists on the Left are unaware of much of this work as the press seldom report it and the pressure on time of activists means that they seldom get to these meetings themselves. But the effort expended has been enormous and not without its effects. Heseltine's attempt to get control of our budget failed in parliament after our campaign which was based on the Group's decision to refuse to obey the law if passed, and our call for industrial action to support this stand.
Although our fares campaign failed to stop the 100 percent fares increase in March it forced the government to give us a legal dispensation which waived the second 50 percent fares increase in June. Our proposals to reduce fares by 25 percent next spring has caused the government to plan new legislation which will give the Transport Minister full control of fares and subsidy.
The GLC's termination of civil defence expenditure has exposed the whole sham of government war planning and forced the abandonment of Operation Hard Rock. Once again the government will be forced to use parliamentary time to get new regulations through and the whole issue will be kept in full public view.
The other key problem we face is within the nature of the Group and the issue of surcharge. The Group voted by 24 to 23 to refuse to comply with the Law Lords judgement and almost won that vote in the full GLC meeting due to Tory abstentions. To have come within three votes of such a major challenge to the power of the state would have provoked a massive crisis within the government about how to respond. Given the weakness of our narrow majority, our limited powers and the impossibility of winning a vote in Council which would risk surcharge we have achieved as much as we can by trying to build support within the trade unions and the wider community.
Tessa's analysis is correct. Our defeats reflect our failure to mobilise organised trade union support and a Labour government which could not count on such support would also suffer defeats and reverses. That is why the major task ahead for socialists is the struggle within the trade unions. To rest simply on the advances made in the constituency parties is to invite defeat.
KEN LIVINGSTONE is leader of the Labour GLC.