The LLMA is an important part of the history and present of the Labour Party and of the capital.
LLMA has proud radical origins. Clement Attlee, Mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney, was one of the 16 Mayors (out of the then 28 Metropolitan Boroughs) who came together in 1920 to found the LLMA, rejecting the then existing Mayors’ Association because it did not provide them with a platform to advocate urgent reform on behalf of the people they represented. Councillor Attlee became the LLMA’s first Chairman.
The founding of the Association was a declaration that while Mayors were and remained civic leaders, they would use the status of their office as local leaders to help their communities.
After serving in the First World War and promotion to the rank of Major, Attlee returned to Stepney and was elected as a councillor and in 1919, Mayor of the Borough. During his time as mayor, the council undertook action to tackle slum landlords who charged high rents but refused to spend money on keeping their property in habitable condition. The council served and enforced legal orders on individuals.
At the 1922 general election, Attlee became MP for Lime House in Stepney. Although he opposed the 1926 General Strike, he used his position as chairman of the Stepney Borough Electricity Committee to reach a deal with the Electrical Trade Union to supply power from the Borough’s power station to hospitals, but end supplies to factories. Following legal action by a private firm,
Attlee and his fellow councillors were ordered to pay £300 damages. The decision was later reversed on appeal, but the financial problems almost drove Attlee out of politics.
The LLMA’s Annual Dinner was for many years the highlight of the London Party’s political year, attended by Mayors, LCC members, MPs and Ministers. Guest speakers included PM Harold Wilson and Chancellor Denis Healey.
London local government was reorganised in 1964, with the creation of the Greater London Council covering a wider area and 32 new larger boroughs. The GLC was abolished in 1986. The current Greater Authority, with a directly elected Mayor and 25 Assembly members, was created in
2000.Throughout, the LLMA has welcomed into membership Labour Mayors and Deputy Mayors of the London Boroughs, and Labour Chairs of the Assembly.
LLMA meets a few times a year for political discussion and social contacts; organises visits to places of interest and a twice yearly lunch for members and guests.
March 2017