Hope by Jack Thorne at the Royal Court
Compulsory entertainment for Labour councillors struggling with Tory cuts in local government!
Saw this play at the Royal Court just before Xmas and I thoroughly recommend it for all Labour councillors and perhaps for some LDs and Tories too. It reminded me very strongly of my own experiences many years ago when as a raw, young Labour councillor I thought that Ted Heath was setting about destroying local government with his Housing Finance Act. It may seem odd now to think of the contortions that we went through then and all over a 50P enforced rent rise on Council tenants but this play recalled some of the same raw emotions.
The claustrophobic nature of politics comes through strongly. Non-politicians may think that practising politicians get absurdly isolated from the “people” but the voters don’t usually have the experience of the hot-house, or any idea of the pressures and of the criticism. This play gives a taste of what it is like.
How much do you cut? How much of a gesture of opposition do you pose to the overwhelming power of Whitehall? Do you fight to the last and leave the final decisions to the civil servants drafted in to take over? Or do you sell your conscience down the river and win a few small concessions? Do you take the pain of local opposition by trimming? Or the contempt of your electorate for ducking the issue?
One difference from the 1970s, as I recall them, is the absence of the “revolting” masses. Then we had marches on Town Halls and national federations of tenant associations urging on the rebels. Today, with the threat to local government arguably even greater than it was then, just where are the protests against this government’s suicidal austerity policy. I suppose the difference is that we lost that battle against central government dictation and, since then, everyone has known that in the end Whitehall will win.
Ironically, of course, the masses might win with the coming defeat of all the mainstream parties, leaving us with years of resolving the differences between left and right without any party really articulating the left. Is that the irony in the title – Hope? Is Thorne suggesting that the only hope is for the Labour Party to come out of its slumbers and issue a rallying call to the left? I would like to think so, but my word, there is some way to go!
PS Tom Georgeson, Wandsworth LP member, takes the acting plaudits with his portrayal of the ex-Leader of this gritty small, northern town. The dramatic action is limited, even if the politics is raw and real.
PPS The Housing Finance Act, 1971, led to central, nationalised control of council rents, which previously had been entirely in the control of local authorities, who had been free to subsidise rents from other council funds. It began by enforcing a 50P rent increase from 1st April 1972 and was resisted by many Labour authorities. It may have only been 50P but with hindsight it was clearly the first major defeat for local government, which has had more and more powers stripped from it ever since regardless of the bogus claims of increased localism by both the Blair/Brown and Cameron governments.
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 