My tribute to Ted Knight

Edward "Red Ted" Knight, a former Labour leader of Lambeth Council known for his resistance to Margaret Thatcher's rate-capping of local councils, died two days ago, aged 86.

 Ted Knight first came to prominence when he became leader of Lambeth Council in 1978, holding that position for almost eight years (for a brief period in 1982, the Conservatives controlled Lambeth Council on the Mayor's casting vote). During that time, Lambeth Council became one of the most radical councils in that country, although this did make it a target for the conservative press for some time. He was most notable for his prominent role in the "rate-capping rebellion", where Lambeth Council and 17 other councils, most of them Labour-controlled (except Brent and Portsmouth) either intended to set an excessive rate or no rate at all, although all except Lambeth and Liverpool set a capped rate after less than one year. Lambeth Council refused to set a rate in protest of the fact that the Rates Act 1984 not only significantly restricted local government spending but also local government autonomy in practice. However, the district auditor surcharged Ted and 31 other Lambeth councillors for not setting a rate and they were subsequently disqualified from office; in the end it made no difference to the curbing of rates or increased centralisation of local government spending controls. After being disqualified from office temporarily, Ted still made sure he was active in frontline progressive politics.

 So farewell, Ted Knight. In spite of this failure to in effect remove most local governmental financial autonomy, which has impacted local government in Britain ever since, your commitment to progressive politics across London will be remembered.

 Edward Robert Knight, born 13 June 1933, departed this life on 30 March 2020, aged 86 years.

Comments

  1. Pete E2 April 2020 at 02:34

    This was my tweet https://twitter.com/pete556/status/1244666713335042049?s=20 when I heard he had passed away - he lived on Gipsy Hill.

    ReplyDelete

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