GLC jobs festivals and concerts

The Greater London Council, the city's local authority from 1964 to 1986, ran two major popular-music festivals to highlight what it was doing to fight unemployment under Margaret Thatcher's government, boost the London economy and help create and fund new jobs. It also ran several concerts for the unemployed – at various town halls across London, at a big top set up in Finsbury Park for a Christmas Party and at the Royal Albert Hall for an evening of jazz and African music.

The events took place against a background of massive unemployment, a miners’ strike lasting a year and Thatcher's developing plans for the abolition of the GLC itself. The Conservative government issued a White Paper (Streamlining the Cities) in 1983, arguing that the GLC and the six metropolitan county councils were profligate and inefficient and should be abolished. In 1985, a local government Act was narrowly passed by Parliament, cancelling the scheduled elections of that year and setting the abolition date for 31 March 1986. Thatcher objected to the anti-government nature of Ken Livingstone's GLC and of other metropolitan councils; her critics claimed she was politically motivated.

The Jobs for a Change festivals, which were both free, attracted huge audiences. The first, on the South Bank in June 1984, drew about 150,000 people. The second, in Battersea Park the following July, attracted an estimated 250,000. The musicians included The Smiths,Billy Bragg,Hank Wangford, Aswad, The Redskins and The Pogues. There were also theatrical groups, cabaret, films and exhibitions, talks, debates and stalls set up by external organisations.

The person mainly responsible for setting up and producing the events was Tony Hollingsworth, who later produced two concerts for Nelson Mandela: the first calling for his release from a South African apartheid prison; the second celebrating it., both watched in more than 60 countries. He was also responsible at the GLC for putting on ethnic-minority concerts featuring African and Asian music. Hollingsworth now produces the Listen Campaign, a multi-media event raising money for children's projects around the world.

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Wikipedia