P.M. wins first stage

Press, 14 April 1984, Page 11

P.M. wins first stage

NZPA-Reuter London The British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, has pushed through the first stage of a plan to abolish the Labourled councils that run London and six other metropolitan areas, despite assertions by some senior Conservative Party colleagues that the move is undemocratic. Mrs Thatcher survived a Conservative revolt in Parliament yesterday to carry through a bill scrapping next year’s local elections in the seven areas by a vote of 301 to 208. The councils are due to be abolished in 1986. The move spells doom for socialist leadership of the Greater London Council, the last remaining stronghold of

the Labour Party in southern England. It also signals an end to the council career of the council’s young firebrand leader, Ken Livingstone, who has become a household name since he took over the headquarters of the G.L.C. across the River Thames from Parliament three years ago. Dubbed by one Rightwing newspaper, “the most odious man in Britain,” Mr Livingstone has been constantly in the public eye for — among other things — declaring London a nuclearfree zone, funding homosexual and other minority fringe groups, and opening a dialogue with supporters of the outlawed Irish Republican Army.

The bill was vigorously opposed in Parliament by several prominent Conservatives, including a former Prime Minister, Edward Heath. He called the plan to scrap elections “the greatest gerrymandering of the last 150 years of British history.” Mrs Thatcher wants to disband the G.L.C. and other big city councils and give responsibility for public services to local boroughs. Mr Livingstone and his supporters argue that abolition is the only way Mrs Thatcher has of overturning socialist government in London and that she is scrapping the elections because they would be certain to return a Labour administration.