So myself and 5 others arrived in April 1988 from the heroic battlefield that was LSPU M Thacher got her way and managed to abolish anything associated with the GLC so this was the end.
We 'landed' in Lambeth after a long struggle with bureaucracy but we were not welcomed as heros as I imagined that we would be given the role of LSPU. In fact not many people in the branch knew who we were or what we did...if anything they were suspicious of us so I guess this shaped the way we viewed things for a long time to come. It was obvious that nothing was safe and that the Leviathan (that's what I call Lambeth Council) was in constant turmoil we had to learn to live with that and knew that the GLC was dead for ever.
The brief reign of Linda Bellos was followed by a shorter rise to power by Dick Serabji who replaced Linda who I regarded as a personal friend, in 1989. Dick was then removed by Joan Twelves who was a close ally of Gregg Tucker. Joan Twelves became the Leader and Gregg Tucker (from the RMT or maybe Aslef) took over the position of Central Services Chair. He ended up being in constant battle with Chief Officers and that, in itself, created instability within the Directorate. I would assume, although I have no evidence of this, that this was the reason as to why Gregg and Joan wanted to do away with the centre!
Joan Twelves decided to reorganise again and brought in Reg Race who then produced the Reg Race report at great expense if I may say so. This was around 1990 shortly after I became Convenor for DMS. It was a very difficult period for all of us but I managed to convince Joan Twelves, with help from Mike Waller who was then the Branch Secretary to allow those who were in a position of redundancy to have 3 redeployment opportunities and 3 appeals against any decisions to dismiss. This later on established the principle of White, Green and Pink redeployee status (denotes priority) I can safely say that no one who wanted to stay was made redundant so we did, in a way, achieve a small victory which gave me and those supporting me the confidence and energy to continue the struggle. I had an extensive network of support which came mainly from the reactivated Black Workers Group who were close allies. I started attending Convenors committee every week to witness battles and carniage which made me wonder if we were all on the the same side. I was young and new to this so a bit shocked!! I vaguely remember a skinny fella, called Jon Rogers, standing up at branch meetings advocating revolution, he was around my age and wondered what planet (at the time) he had landed from...
It became clear and obvious to me that we had to organise ourselves better and have trained shop stewards able to defend attacks from the employer but I was, at the same time, anxious to retain a balance between being anti everything and everyone and work with the employer to ensure that the interests of members were protected. I am a reformist and have always argued that change should be achieved using legal means. So the Reg Race report/reorganisation threw me at the deep end and forced me to come to terms with the realisation that I had to lead from the front so I waved goodbye to the opportunity of finishing a Cipfa qualification and I took up arms (literary speaking of course) I never believed that Lambeth was a bad employer and that everyone in top management positions was instinctively bad on the contrary I always knew that those who chose to come and work in Lambeth knew of its history and splendid past and retained within them a degree of honor and integrity. They were not the enemy but were forced into a hard position by a reactionary government, this, I think, helped me later on to persuade Chief Executives/officers to follow advice from me which in tern help us. There was inevitably the odd wanker to be found in the midst of despair and confusion but in general I felt and still do that those who work for Lambeth Council are a special breed of essentially good people who believe in public service. Even the Tories in Lambeth are a bad version of Liberals....
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