Catalogue Number
NMLH.2024.42.5
Object Name
print
Title
'"The Committee wants to know - and know now! - who put the 5p in it?" Fri 7th March 1986'
Place
Lambeth, London, Liverpool, White's Gentleman Club
People
Derek Hatton, Ted Knight, Labour Party, Lambeth Council
Events
1985 Rate-Capping Rebellion
Description
A group of old men in identical black suit jackets and pinstripe trousers stand around a noticeboard with a donaton box pinned to it labelled 'White's Club Derek Hatton & Ted Knight Appeal Fund. Give Generously. No Cheques.' A man with a monocle is pointing angrily at it asking "The Committee wants to know - and know now! - who put the 5p in it?" as a man beside him raises his hand to admit to doing so.
Derek Hatton and Ted Knight were both Labour Party councillors and members of the Trotskyist Militant group. Hatton was the deputy leader of Liverpool City Council, and Knight was the leader of Lambeth Borough Council in London. Both men led councils which participated in the 1985 rate-capping rebellion under which the council refused to set a budget in an attempt to force the Conservative government to abandon their policy of restricting the spending of local councils by capping the rates councils could charge households. The Rates Bill, enacted by the Conservatives in 1984, was an attempt to curb the spending of mostly Labour run local authorities.
Refusing to set a rate and produce a budget was illegal, and of the 15 councils which began the protest, only Lambeth and Liverpool held out. The protest was not supported by the Labour Party leadership, who feared it would bring Labour councils into disrepute and risk Labour being ousted from power in those areas. Both Lambeth and Liverpool councillors (32 in Lambeth and 42 in Liverpool) who participated in the rebellion were eventually found guilty of willful misconduct and forced to personally pay fines equivilent to the amount of interest on tax payments their respective councils had lost, and were banned from holding office for 5 years. This satirical print demonstrates the lack of empathy within the political class for the fined councillors, but showing the politicians as members of gentlemen's clubs like White's, may suggest that the artist is showing them as detached from public mood.
Multimedia
