Workers' Liberty

Local authority workers have not traditionally been as militant and organised as in major manufacturing industries.

January 1982 to July 1985

Why did all the promises and good intentions of the new left come to naught in this way?

Something of a local government left had begun to emerge in the early '70s, talking about 'participation' and 'the community'.

“Having shown first that everyone is a philosopher, though in his own way and unconsciously, since even in the slightest manifestation of any intellectual activity whatever...

Hilda Kean, who resigned as leader of Hackney council when the council decided to knuckle under to the Tories, analyses the ratecapping battle.

In moving from the half-revolutionary politics they started off with, the new local government left have not arrived back at traditional Labour reformism, unmodified.

Support Edinburgh and Liverpool!

Liverpool and Edinburgh councils are now moving towards a decisive confrontation with the Tories.

The recent political collapse of much of the local government left in
face of the Tory offensive was not inevitable. Other and better
things were possible.

The bitter experience of Labour in government in 1964-70 and in 1974-9 pushed many activists away from reformism and towards revolutionary socialism.