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If voting changed anything, they'd abolish it
367 pages, Hardcover
First published September 7, 1987
49 people want to read
About the author
Ken Livingstone
17 books4 followersBritish Labour politician and former mayor of London.
Livingstone joined the Labour party in 1968 and is considered to be part of the hard-left wing of the party.
In 2000 he was elected for mayor of London.
Livingstone joined the Labour party in 1968 and is considered to be part of the hard-left wing of the party.
In 2000 he was elected for mayor of London.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 2, 2020
At the first glance kind of an odd title for a book om local London politics. But his point was that the Labour left did accomplish a lot in the Greater London Council until Thatcher decided to abolish it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2013
This was an intense and illuminating account of the rise and fall of the Labour Left in the context of the Greater London Council, (GLC).
Whilst the book was initially concerned with the ascendancy of the Author through the various committees and structures of the GLC; the attendant politicking that this required was truly incredible, with every vote and machination which lead to the solidfication of the Leftist grip on the GLC is accounted for in minute detail.
However, the book came to life once the account of the day-to-day operations of the GLC; the ideological battle between the New Right and the Radical Left, and the agit-prop activities of the GLC in the context of funding pressure groups, and the publication of left-leaning briefings and bulletins across the London area.
The GLC, as the Author rightly accounts, was an incredible attempt at expanding participatory / Directly democratic politics within the UK, and it also served as a bulwark against the ascendant New Right by promulgating a Socialist agenda which, despite the catastrophic leadership of the Labour Party in the early 1980's, proved both incredibly popular and acted as a lifeline for the dispossesed and subjugated minorities. The abolition of the GLC was nothing short of an unconstitutional power grab by the Conservative Party in order to preserve their artificial grip on the national narrative.
The GLC experiment highlighted how forward-thinking elements of the Labour left were, and criticially, removes the truly radical from the obstinacy and inherent conservatism of the official Trade Union movement and the reduction of Socialism to mere economism. The all-pervasive con-trick of equating the levelling of the Labour Party in 1983 with a National rejection of Socialism circumvents the positive role that the GLC played in National politics. The GLC ensured that, in the face of extraordinary vitriol and concerted Press campaigns against Ken Livingstone and others, a participative form of Socialism was operationalised in the Capital in up until 1984, and was only curtailed by state-sanctioned abolition.
This was an intriguing and gritty first-hand account of the rise and fall of the GLC by one of the UK's most recognisable and "notorious" politicians, whom, in the wake of this work, has increased in my estimations, and has given me a new appreciation of the class struggle in 1980's Britain.
Whilst the book was initially concerned with the ascendancy of the Author through the various committees and structures of the GLC; the attendant politicking that this required was truly incredible, with every vote and machination which lead to the solidfication of the Leftist grip on the GLC is accounted for in minute detail.
However, the book came to life once the account of the day-to-day operations of the GLC; the ideological battle between the New Right and the Radical Left, and the agit-prop activities of the GLC in the context of funding pressure groups, and the publication of left-leaning briefings and bulletins across the London area.
The GLC, as the Author rightly accounts, was an incredible attempt at expanding participatory / Directly democratic politics within the UK, and it also served as a bulwark against the ascendant New Right by promulgating a Socialist agenda which, despite the catastrophic leadership of the Labour Party in the early 1980's, proved both incredibly popular and acted as a lifeline for the dispossesed and subjugated minorities. The abolition of the GLC was nothing short of an unconstitutional power grab by the Conservative Party in order to preserve their artificial grip on the national narrative.
The GLC experiment highlighted how forward-thinking elements of the Labour left were, and criticially, removes the truly radical from the obstinacy and inherent conservatism of the official Trade Union movement and the reduction of Socialism to mere economism. The all-pervasive con-trick of equating the levelling of the Labour Party in 1983 with a National rejection of Socialism circumvents the positive role that the GLC played in National politics. The GLC ensured that, in the face of extraordinary vitriol and concerted Press campaigns against Ken Livingstone and others, a participative form of Socialism was operationalised in the Capital in up until 1984, and was only curtailed by state-sanctioned abolition.
This was an intriguing and gritty first-hand account of the rise and fall of the GLC by one of the UK's most recognisable and "notorious" politicians, whom, in the wake of this work, has increased in my estimations, and has given me a new appreciation of the class struggle in 1980's Britain.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews