Tuite
TWO YEARS of Joan Twelves' leadership of Lambeth Council have ended, terminated not by the local parties or the 40 Labour councillors, but by Walworth Road's witchhuntin eft has The protested against this disgraceful interference in local democracy, knowing that any replacement will be even more hostile to socialist politics. Yet there will be few tears shed, given the lisastrous policies followed by the council leadership over the years.
Vilified
How is it that the very administration that the Tories, their obnoxious press gand and the polite rottweilers of Walworth Road have vilified and witch-hunted, is also seen as the enemy by its own trade unionists, anti-poll tax activists, and by large sections of the left?
These two years can be seen as a perfect lesson in how to alienate every conceivable section of the political and social world. It was a long, tortuous, and inglorious exercise in the shedding of principles.
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June 8, 1991 No. 3 Political principles are not idealistic, dreamy things. They concern the alliances you make and your goals. On all these questions the Twelves administration was a disaster, leaving it isolated and easy pickings tor hungry witchhunters.
Fighting Tories Any history of the administration must acknowledge the contradictory on of the Ted Knight years. tradictory, because Knight, regardless of criticisms that could be made, did put up a fight against the government. But a fight that was defeated, resulting in surcharge and dis qualification.
Most of the present leadership, given this experience, had some idea of fighting, but inherited defeat. The on the council was ma only well to the left by national standards, but not enough to risk surcharge. And this was decisive.
The administration came to power as the Poll Tax approached, as major cuts spending, privatisation, rent rises, and Local Management of Schools hurtled towards it. These represented major attacks on the community and workforce. It would have been a tormidable wave to tace in the best of circumstances - but held opportunities for the left, especially the Poll Tax.
the leadership's oromises of fighting the Poll Tax and rent rises, working with the unions, were never serious. Even in the early days, the capturing of the council apnaratus was seen as a goal ir itself. 'Keep out the LCC was the sacred chant, even if that meant adopting their political framework.
So they implemented the Poll Tax, claiming that rent rises would be the decisive battle. Then rents were raised. Cuts would be the big test instead... Until the first round of cuts.
Soon they stopped pretending that they would fight. A punitive sickness policy was ntroduced, to get the service running more efficiently. The rots grew, until the meceon cuts round, a crushing £25 million worth. This was more than the LCC ever had to do, yet former anti-cuts Councillors found it possible to swallow this. Keeping the LCC out was, after all, an absolute necessity!
Holding power
Hold onto power 'for the left' was the idea. More and more often, the phrase 'wait for a Labour government' would slip from their lips. 'New realism' was coming to Lambeth, and the erstwhile 'left' was its host, deriding councillors who argued fora politics of struggle as unrealistic, splitters, ultra-left...
And of the administration's triumphs? Well, they surprised everybody, winning their court case against the government over their right to set a higher Twelves' predecessor Lambeth mobilises against the Poll Tax March 1990 Poll Tax than capping would have initially implied. Local people were not exactly holding street parties!
This illustrated the problem. It was a victory for the local state against the central state. But it was totally disconnected and at odds with any real demands or mobilisations of the community.
Sometimes, small issues highlight the depths to which such politics sank. Nowhere •Ise but 'left-wing' Lambett vere two Labour Councillors who haven't paid their Poll Tax, actually banned from voting in the Council.
Two votes Two uncounted votes were precisely what the leadership needed to get its £26 million cuts package and record Poll Tax through.
Having ditched socialist politics for an impoverished form of 'pragmatism', not even Ted Knight, during rate-capping struggle basic democratic rights wereto be defended - that an elected councillor can vote So why the witch-hunt, if the leadership was so compliant? Two issues forced it. Firstly, the recommendation that Poll Tax bailiffs should not be used.
Then, crucially, voting against the Gulf War. These were more than could be tolerated by the local LCC and the national Labour Party.
Conscience
The administration's leftwing past would never leave it alone, tugging constantly, albeit usual ineffectively, at its conscience. But you are now not allowed to make day-trips to the left in the Labour Party, especially on a question as dear to the NEC as a war.
The result is an administration that has angered its natural enemies, but also alienated it's potential friends. NALGO, for example, has opposed the witch-hunt, but its efforts are understandablv tied up with fighting the job cuts that Joan Twelves continues to force through.
As Twelves faced the end of her leadership, workers were going into occupation, ballotng for all-out industrial action, lobbying the security-guarded Town Hall, and commenting bitterly on her last days.
Towards the end, the few remaining sympathisers could he heard bemoaning the fact that Twelves was wrong, no matter which way she turned.
Yet such a realisation never translated into an standing that the left never held any real power in Lambeth, but instead made itself simply a function of other forces. Sometimes they complained, but always they complied.
Little money
How did it end? Proving everyone to their right ab solutely wrong by successfully appealing against capping, they had a little extra money to spend.
After two years arguing that all the compromises, sell-outs, and low-deals were necessary to prevent the right-wing and the LCC coming to power, the last act of the administration was to reverse a few cuts, not their own priorities, It has to be asserted in the face of all the cynicism and shallow 'realism', that real power cannot be won in isolation from the struggles of the anour movement.
The Twelves administration ratted on every item in their original manifesto. It was clear that the real power was else where, and that they were increasingly just a tool of other Torces.
Litmus test
There is a simple litmus test for socialists. Ignore having your own office, and lots of suited people around you. Ignore your ability to deliver a vote (on whose terms?).
If you cannot welcome, and seek to amplify the struggles of local people, then such power is worth nothing. Indeed you only have it until someone with real power takes it away.
That is the sad truth about the Twelves administration, recently deceased.