God and Mrs Thatcher (7 page)

In 1919 the
Daily Mail
had somewhat loosely defined the middle class as ‘those folk who become below the peerage, but who do not have [national] insurance cards'.
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Over the next twenty years, aided by the consumer and property boom, the middle class expanded exponentially even though this was to be a geographical divide as much as it was a class one, with the south prospering while the industrial north felt the full effects of the Depression. Importantly, though, the Roberts family did not live in the new towns – the Dagenhams or the Brents – those areas defined by light industries, the new professional and skilled working-class inhabitants, a weak religious presence and the dominance of American consumer culture. Although Thatcher would later electorally triumph in southern suburbia, she was not a product of it. Grantham, on the other hand, was still shaped by its rural and aristocratic connections, its old industries, services and traditional vocations. Alfred Roberts
may have made it into the middle class, but as a self-employed grocer, he was not of professional rank. Instead, the Robertses were members of the most fluid and frustrated section of British society: the lower middle class, who tend to take a disparaging view of both the established middle class (who do not need to strive) and the lower class (who do not bother). Unlike some members of her party, Margaret Thatcher's attitude towards the working man was never paternalistic: she was too close to the working class to be either sympathetic to it or frightened by it.

Given his strong political leanings, why then did Alfred Roberts stand as an independent on the council? The truth is that this label is misleading. Borough councils, unlike metropolitan ones, tended not to adopt party political labels during these years, although this began to change from the late 1930s onwards. Moreover, Alfred Roberts was not an independent at all but the appointee of the local branch of the Chamber of Trade. Founded in 1897, the chamber was a members-only organisation designed to protect and promote local businesses against unfair competition and to keep a watchful eye on legislation, tax and insurance. The chamber operated its own debt-collecting service and was particularly effective in curbing black-market activities during wartime. Its membership included businessmen, shopkeepers and (in this pre-NHS era) even doctors, although it refused entry to representatives of the Licensed Victuallers Association of Trade (pub landlords) and when the major industries were nationalised in the 1950s, it also barred members of those sectors from joining. Alfred Roberts's association with the chamber dated back to 1927 and he would later serve twice as its president. One particular success noted in its minute books was over the purchasing of uniforms for Margaret Roberts's school. The chamber fought against a monopoly, appealing to the school governors (of which Alfred Roberts was one) to ensure ‘that parents could buy clothing where they liked'.
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The chamber also hosted regular lectures on topics including business-finance, banking and the rise of the Co-op, which one would imagine only reinforced their hostility to organised labour and possibly international capitalism,
for this was an organisation born out of the interests of provincial capitalism designed to protect the interests of provincial businessmen.

Even though the chamber asserted its non-partisan credentials, this was a dubious claim. Politically speaking, the chamber may not have been exclusively Conservative or Liberal but it was certainly anti-Labour. In the 1931 general election, for example, the chamber took out an advertisement in the
Grantham Journal
urging businessmen to support the local National Government (Conservative) candidate. The chamber worked alongside the Ratepayers Association (a lobby group for homeowners) in vetting and sponsoring new candidates for council elections. This was local democracy in action, and was, in no uncertain terms, a stitch-up. Records suggest that the chamber's majority on the council and even its seats on the county council was largely down to fixed agreement between candidates. In 1928, a resolution was sent to the Labour Party concerning the forthcoming county council elections stating that if they did not agree to the terms set down, the chamber would fight all seventeen seats. A deal was struck where candidates would run uncontested. The independents' run of the town council was also reinforced by their control over the aldermanic elections, voted for by councillors rather than the electorate, and awarded to ex-councillors who were judged to have given great service; one of whom would later be Alfred Roberts.

Long before Grantham became synonymous with Margaret Thatcher, it gained national notoriety as a place of corruption. In 1937, local journalist and author Oliver Anderson (pseudonym) published
Rotten
Borough,
a parody of the dodgy dealings and self-serving pontifications of the petite bourgeoisie that ran the town.

Anderson, though, reserved his greatest criticism for those who ran the Chamber of Trade and the town council, whom he considered ‘the very root of all evil:'
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Far from the quaint picture of Grantham life portrayed by Margaret Thatcher as one of civic duty and service,
Rotten Borough
is a tale of self-interest and material gain. One character, greengrocer Councillor Nurture, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Alfred Roberts, is accused of fixing the street lighting with gas rather than electricity in order to profit from his shares in the local gas company (he also has a reputation for being overly familiar with his female staff). Unsurprisingly, the book was withdrawn after just three weeks, when an avalanche of libel claims reached the publishers. The claims of corruption aside, what Anderson had got right were the distinct class and power networks in the town. There was undoubtedly a Grantham clique – men such as Stanley Foster, George Mills, Frederick Cheshire, George Green, Arthur Eatch, as well as Alfred Roberts – whose names can be found dominating the records of the town council, Rotary, Chamber of Trade and carved on the roll call of mayors in the town hall.

Rotten Borough: The men (and two women) running Grantham. Alfred Roberts can be seen on the second row, second from the right

When the council was established in 1835, its chief purpose had been to administer public health and highways, but by the time Alfred Roberts was elected in 1927, its responsibilities, funds and sphere of influence had expanded exponentially to include sanitation, maternity and child welfare, roads and slum clearance, as well as the monitoring and licensing of public spaces. In 1929, Parliament extended these responsibilities even further by transferring the administration of the poor relief to local councils with the idea of loosening the social stigmatisation of destitution under the new bureaucratic guise of social welfare. Then borough councils were not considered as a mechanism of the state or a sphere for party politics, they were an organ for the community and a realm of local influence. This was beginning to change however. In the 1920s, as council responsibilities expanded, so did the flow of funds from central government. Grantham was not alone in seeking a central grant from the Public Works Loan Board at the Ministry of Health to invest in local housing, but what is perhaps more interesting is how it operated. Council discussions clearly demonstrate a preference for buyers rather than renters in a belief that the occupier would demonstrate more care and responsibility ‘if the property were his own'.
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The fiscal and social benefits of encouraging homeownership were discovered long before Margaret Thatcher's great ‘Sale of the Century', it seems. If the operations of Grantham council reveal anything, though, it is that welfare provision rarely fits into such neat patterns of public versus private, charity versus state. Grantham's mixed economy of welfare and governance is perhaps one lesson that Margaret Thatcher did not take with her from Grantham.

It was in his role as head of the finance and rating group that Alfred Roberts became known as Grantham's ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer'. Clearly a keen advocate for low rates and fiscal prudence, in 1936 Roberts pushed through the contracting out of the maintenance of public housing, arguing in the name of cost, efficiency and what was the best deal for ratepayers. What Alfred Roberts's council would do for ninety council
houses in Grantham, his daughter would later enforce as a principle across the land. Year after year, Roberts successfully managed to balance the books, but in 1937 he controversially set the rates at fourteen shillings in the pound, which was then above the Ministry of Labour's Standard of Living Index and an unreasonable level for a town of Grantham's size. In one of the lengthiest and most fractious debates in his years as councillor – which eerily foreshadow that of the Poll Tax – Roberts defended his policy by explaining that the hike was necessary because of unexpected debts relating to the local mental hospital. Only when probed did he reluctantly admit that it was also to pay for the alterations and furnishings of the town clerk's new offices and an increase in council salaries.

Correctly sensing that the rate was unjustifiable, Roberts put the blame on those who did not pay, who were, in his words ‘sponging on the people who do'. Bad collection rates was a moot point, but when it was suggested that harsh proceedings be taken against defaulters, Roberts feared a backlash: ‘If I did that I don't know whether I would dare walk about the streets of Grantham … I am sorry to have to be the man to move it and more sorry than ever to be one of the men who will have to pay it' he remarked bitterly.
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Even in this period, local rates were known as the ‘unfair tax', for, as responsibilities of local councils increased (especially in relation to social welfare), homeowners complained, somewhat legitimately, that they were paying for services for which they themselves did not benefit. It remained a contentious issue and one which Margaret Thatcher would attempt to solve, disastrously, when Prime Minister.

Local borough councils reached their peak of authority and influence in the 1930s, but soon Westminster started to usurp these powers and so began the process of centralised control. It developed an unstoppable momentum during wartime and continued apace in the late 1940s and early 1950s under successive Labour and Conservative administrations in what might be interpreted as the evolution of centralism rather than a fundamental ideological switch. Grantham's councillors
may have regretted the loss of their powers but they also recognised that their small borough council was ill-equipped to deal with growing expectations and responsibilities.

In 1945, Alfred Roberts would reach the pinnacle of his career by becoming Mayor of Grantham. At the election, one of his archrivals, Councillor Foster, generously heaped praise on a man whose ‘forthrightness' and ‘unchallengeable integrity' made him worthy of the role. The outgoing mayor, Councillor Dale, then placed the robe and chain on Alfred Roberts's shoulders and handed him the seal. According to the
Grantham Journal,
Roberts was overwhelmed by the occasion, his stern face softening momentarily.
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The role itself was chiefly ceremonial and one often bestowed on long-serving members of the council, but Alfred Roberts (like his daughter) clearly revelled in the ceremonial side of politics; no more so than in 1945 when he led the victory parade to celebrate the end of the war. How the people of Grantham greeted his time in office is impossible to judge, although the
Grantham Guardian,
a paper that took a very dim view of proceedings at the town hall, often portrayed him somewhat unfavourably as Napoleon Bonaparte.

Post-war reconstruction brought great changes in Grantham, as it did elsewhere in Britain. The borough council promised an ambitious programme of house building, state education and full employment. It appeared, though, that the old guard would have no place in the new regime as the newly elected council declared its intention to work for the working class of the town and not be beholden to private or sectional interests. It would take seven years before the Labour Party would finally achieve a majority on the council in 1952 and, naturally, it was only fair that the number of aldermen reflected this majority. On the day of the election, it came down to a division between two candidates, with Roberts losing by a not insubstantial five votes. The
Grantham Journal
recorded the scene that followed: