‘Policy-Capped’: The 1988 Budget

Abstract

The general election that had been the council’s one faint hope of salvation for some time was called in May 1987 and held in June. The result was dismaying but not a surprise; again the Conservatives won. They promised, moreover, what Gyford, Leach and Game (1989: 315) describe as ‘a massive and radical legislative programme, designed quite explicitly to emasculate local government and destroy all vestiges of “municipal socialism”’. The Queen’s Speech included promises of legislation to replace domestic rates with the community charge (or ‘poll tax’), to make the housing revenue account self-financing (or ’ringfenced), and to extend compulsory competitive tendering, to mention just a few. This was a challenging array of issues to confront the new Solicitor, who arrived in July 1987.