Robin Murray

GLC_Robin and the GLC

 

Robin & the Greater London Council

 

By Michael Ward 

Robin Murray joined the Greater London Council as its first – and only – Chief Economic Adviser in 1981. For five years he led a diverse team of economists and staff from many other backgrounds. During that time, Robin and his team developed a new analysis of the London economy, and of life and labour in London, which posed a fundamental challenge to the old orthodoxies.

Robin’s appointment came after the election of a radical Labour administration in May 1981. The new leadership was committed to an ambitious programme – building new homes, slashing the fares on public transport, creating fair employment conditions for women and minorities, reshaping the public procurement function, and opening up the land use planning system.

The industry and employment programme was central to the new approach. Robin led the Economic Policy Group, a strategy team tasked with producing the analysis – later, as the team grew, it was recognised that its role had expanded beyond advice and into project implementation; Robin became the Director of the Industry and Employment Branch. The Economic Policy Group’s key role was to draw up the London Industrial Strategy, combining research and policy development to guide the Council and the Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB).

Robin Murray, Michael Ward, Neil Kinnock & Ken Livingstone (L-R) at the Launch of the London Industrial Strategy, 1985

Robin Murray, Michael Ward, Neil Kinnock & Ken Livingstone (L-R) at the Launch of the London Industrial Strategy, 1985

As well as the industrial strategy, two further strategy documents were produced – the London Labour Plan, dealing with labour market issues; and the London Financial Strategy, which examines London’s financial services sector.

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Alongside the Economic Policy Group, GLEB was the main delivery agency for the programme. GLEB was at arm’s length, with an independent board – drawn from trade unions, business, academic life, and elsewhere. It was responsible for investment in London companies, restructuring and helping the development of new products.

A further delivery agency, the Greater London Training Board (GLTB), was established to develop learning and training programmes.

The original Economic Policy Group had four members alongside Robin:

  • Mike Cooley (formerly a shop steward at Lucas Aerospace)

  • Peter Brayshaw (formerly TUC)

  • Nick Sharman (South East Region TUC

  • Hilary Wainwright (writer and campaigner)

The 1981 election result happened at a time of rapid industrial change and rising unemployment. Between 1979 and 1982, registered unemployment in London trebled following the election of the Thatcher government. In their 1983 study, Unemployment in London, the team made a detailed analysis.

One function of the Economic Policy Group was to contribute to debates on national economic policy. In October1982, Robin produced the report Monetarism in London, which was published under the name of the Leader of the Council, Ken Livingstone. This identified the central elements of government policy:

  • Weaken union power

  • Cut and privatise state activity

  • Remove exchange controls, the protections of a low exchange rate and preferences for national purchasing.

The report accepted that the economy was entering into a period of deep restructuring, but argued that “… it must be a restructuring organised on behalf of and with the support of labour, rather than at its expense.” The report identified technology as key: “…there is a spectrum of new technologies, some centred on human skills, others aimed to de-skill.” It called for a focus on human-centred technology.

The argument was further developed in The Third Industrial Revolution and the Restructuring of the London Economy.

Robin returned to these issues in his later article Life After Henry (Ford) for the magazine Marxism Today in 1988, arguing that “For monetarism the route to profitability went through the weakening of labour, a cut in state spending, and a reclaiming of the public sector for private accumulation.”

Within days of the election of the Labour administration in 1981, voices in the Conservative government began to call for the abolition of the GLC. This became official Conservative policy in 1983. In autumn 1983, Robin drafted another report for the GLC Leader, Rates, Jobs and the GLC, which provided an economic case against abolition. A popular version of this was subsequently published with the title Four Government Lies.

The four lies were:

  • ‘Local government spending is out of control’

  • ‘Rate rises are caused by reckless spending’

  • ‘Rates squeeze the private sector’

  • ‘Rates are a tax on jobs’

The reports rebut each of these allegations in turn, and conclude: “In spite of the Government’s restrictions, the Council has shown, brick by brick and job by job, what can be done with an interventionist policy geared to jobs and needs.”

 
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Economic Policy Group reports – one of them Multinationals and London - demonstrated the increasing role of multinational companies in London. Working with trades unionists at Ford (in Dagenham) and Kodak (in Harrow), the reports showed how London plants were integrated in an international division of labour within companies. As the London Industrial Strategy stated: “The multinationalisation of production is the step which allows workforces in London to be played off against those abroad…”

The Group assisted the establishment of international trade union structures to enable effective negotiation across national boundaries.

The Council also set up a Commission of Enquiry into Ford, and produced the report Ford and Public Policy.

Policies for local economic development (especially on the left) had traditionally focussed narrowly on manufacturing. Work for the London Industrial strategy identified the cultural industries – not just the subsidised arts, but television, radio, video, popular music, print and publishing as well – as a major economic sector, concentrated in London. It covered some established manufacturing areas, but extended far beyond them. The Strategy pointed out that the cultural industries were major exporters. The GLC was one of the first organisations to use the term ‘cultural industry’.   See the publication Campaign for a Popular Culture.

Privatising state activity was a central element in the strategy of the Thatcher government. In 1983 it was the turn of British Telecom. In April 1983, the Economic Policy Group prepared another report for the Council Leader, with the title British Telecom and the two nations, which argued that “Privatization in this area can shape the two nations of the twenty-first century, according to the vision of the dominant one of them – the owners and managers of capital.”

At the same time as privatising British Telecom, the government proposed a major extension of cable broadcasting; in July 1983, in conjunction with Sheffield City Council, the GLC held a series of public hearings on the government’s plans for cable. Cabling in London explains this.

Some studies were concerned with areas within London. One of these was West London and Heathrow. Research drawn together in the West London Report suggested that, while Heathrow Airport was of great importance for trade, economic pressures generated by the airport’s success were making manufacturing in West London increasingly unviable. The Industrial Strategy stated: “New development and employment in the West London area, much of it associated with the airport, have centred upon warehouses, offices and hotels at the expense of long-established manufacturing employment.”

East London, the area of the declining docks, had a particular priority. The Government had decided to hand over land, and the task of supervising development, to an unelected body – the London Docklands Development Corporation. Within the Industry and Employment Branch a Popular Planning Unit (PPU) was established, to strengthen grass roots involvement in planning.

Within the overall Docklands area, a proposal emerged to build an airport for short- take-off aircraft – the STOLport – on a derelict site in the Royal Docks. The People’s Plan for the Royal Docks emerged in response to this proposal. PPU staff worked with local people to develop the plan, which was distributed door-to-door in the area it covered. The plan called for the airport project to be stopped; the People’s Plan to be incorporated into the statutory local plan; the docks to be bought for the people; and for cash earmarked for local development to be managed by local representatives.

The Economic Policy Group was concerned with inequality, as it affected women and minorities in the labour market. In 1982 a Leader’s Report on Women and Employment was prepared for the Council. The Industrial Strategy argued that unpaid domestic labour – typically performed by women – should be regarded as part of the mainstream economy.

One function of Robin Murray’s team was providing policy guidance and support to GLEB. The discussion document, Enterprise Planning, illustrates one approach to this, looking at ways in which social and economic requirements could be tied to assistance given to businesses.

Furniture making was a traditional London industry in decline in the 1980s.  Beneath the Veneer is the result of workshops, initiated by the GLC, with furniture workers. Published after the abolition of the GLC, it concludes with recommendations for future interventionist approaches.

In the last year of the GLC’s operation it took a major initiative (Twin Conference Opening 1986) which aimed to improve the terms of trade between Britain and countries of the global south. At a conference in London TWIN and TWIN Trading were launched. TWIN was designed to create new opportunities for small scale, cooperative producers of coffee, cocoa, and other commodities to access markets at fair prices. They traded successfully for over 30 years.

August 2020