Reg Goodwin
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Sir Reginald Eustace Goodwin (usually known as Sir Reg Goodwin) (July 3, 1908 - September 29, 1986) was a British politician in London. He was the Leader of the Greater London Council from 1973 to 1977 despite being exceptionally self-effacing; although on the moderate wing of the Labour Party, he supported policies which stressed public control of utilities.
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Family background
Goodwin was from a middle-class family and was born in Streatham. He went to the Strand School but left at 16 to become a tea-buyer for a City firm. In his spare time he worked at the Oxford and Bermondsey Boys' Club, a charity set up by the University of Oxford to help underprivileged boys in Bermondsey, where he then lived. Through this work he became full-time Assistant Secretary of the National Association of Boys' Clubs when it was set up in 1934. From 1945 he was its General Secretary.
Party politics
He had joined the Labour Party in 1932 and began a political career in 1937 when he was elected to Bermondsey Borough Council. His administrative ability was noticed and he became Leader of the Council in the 1940s. Meanwhile, he had been elected to the London County Council in 1946, where Labour Leader Sir Isaac Hayward spotted his potential and gave him important committee assignments.
GLC membership
Goodwin became a member of the Greater London Council in 1964 and quietly chaired the Finance Committee in the Labour administration. After the Conservatives won a landslide election victory in 1967 he was chosen as the new Labour Leader almost by default, other more dynamic personalities having been defeated. He was given a Knighthood on the recommendation of Harold Wilson and was almost always known as 'Sir Reg' thereafter.
After the second defeat in 1970 Goodwin became more aggressive in his opposition to Sir Desmond Plummer's Conservative GLC. He personally wrote much of the Labour manifesto for the 1973 elections which was distinctly left-wing, despite his moderate politics. Labour won a landslide victory helped by the unpopularity of the Conservative government and the GLC's unpopular urban motorway road schemes and Goodwin became GLC Leader.
Leadership
Soon after the election the massive inflation caused by the Yom Kippur War caused havoc with the GLC finances. Goodwin was forced to cut investment programmes and increase transport fares and as a result became unpopular with the left. His attempts to conciliate with them caused resignations among the right-wing Labour councillors. Goodwin's exceptionally discrete personal style meant that he was rarely targeted personally, but left him with few political friends.
He was re-elected Leader when Labour lost the 1977 GLC election but few expected him to continue in the post. He announced his resignation very suddenly by leaving 28 copies (one for every member of the Labour Group) of a resignation letter on the desk of the Chief Whip, with a note suggesting he might like to distribute them. On taking his seat on the backbenches he remarked "I'm glad to be sitting here, because fewer of my friends are behind me."
Deselection
Goodwin's own constituency party in Bermondsey had been taken over by the left, including Peter Tatchell who was soon to be selected to succeed Robert Mellish as the MP. Although they wished him well personally and respected his contribution, the Bermondsey left insisted on a new candidate for the 1981 elections and deselected him. He let his membership of the Labour Party lapse in 1982.
| Preceded by: Sir Desmond Plummer | Leader of the Greater London Council 1973-1977 | Succeeded by: Sir Horace Cutler |