Greater London Council election, 1967
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The second election to the Greater London Council was held on April 13, 1967, and saw the first Conservative victory for a London-wide authority since 1931. In addition to the 100 councillors, there were sixteen Aldermen who divided 10 Conservative and 6 Labour, so that the Conservatives actually had 92 seats to 24 for Labour following the election.
With an electorate of 5,319,023, there was a turnout of 41.1%. While a Conservative victory was thought likely, the scale of the victory surprised many people; the Conservative wins in Camden, Greenwich, Hammersmith and Haringey were particularly impressive.
Among those defeated in the election were the Labour Leader, Bill Fiske in Havering by a Conservative team that included Jeffrey Archer, who was making his entrance into politics. Other notable politicians who had their first success at this election include Harvey Hinds (Labour, Southwark, later Chief Whip for Ken Livingstone) and Christopher Bland (Conservative, Lewisham, later Chairman of the BBC).
[edit] Results
| Greater London Council election, 1967 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Votes | Votes % | +/- | Candidates | Seats | Gains | Losses | Net Gain/Loss | |
| Conservative | 1,136,092 | 52.6 | +12.5 | 100 | 82 | 46 | +46 | ||
| Labour | 732,669 | 34.0 | -10.7 | 100 | 18 | 46 | -46 | ||
| Liberal | 189,868 | 8.8 | -1.2 | 100 | |||||
| Communist | 65,184 | 3.0 | -0.8 | 38 | |||||
| Independent | 13,229 | 0.6 | 10 | ||||||
| Union Movement | 8,146 | 0.4 | +0.3 | 5 | |||||
| Socialist Party (GB) | 3,695 | 0.2 | 14 | ||||||
| National Union of Council Tenants | 1,977 | 0.1 | 4 | ||||||
| National Front | 1,840 | 0.1 | 3 | ||||||
| John Hampden New Freedom Party | 1,580 | 0.1 | 1 | ||||||
| Islington Tenants and Ratepayers Political Association | 1,244 | 0.1 | 3 | ||||||
| Independent Carnaby Street candidates | 870 | 0.0 | 2 | ||||||
| Commonwealth Party of Great Britain | 714 | 0.0 | 4 | ||||||
| European Labour Party | 664 | 0.0 | 1 | ||||||
[edit] By-elections 1967-1970
One of the successful Conservative candidates, Sheila Bradley (Greenwich), was a school nurse for the Inner London Education Authority. It was discovered that this was a disqualifying office as she was in effect an employee of the GLC (given that ILEA was technically a committee of the GLC); she resigned on May 24 prior to the hearing of an election petition. At a byelection on June 29, Labour gained the seat. There were two further byelections during the course of the term: on November 7, 1968 the Conservatives held a seat at Bromley after the death of a councillor, and on December 12 of the same year the Conservatives held a seat at Havering after one of their councillors resigned.
There were two seats vacant by the end of the term. A Conservative councillor for Harrow died on June 8, 1969 and on January 8, 1970 a Conservative councillor for Hammersmith was disqualified after failing to attend a meeting of the GLC or its committees for six months.
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