Abstract
This chapter demonstrates that Canary Wharf would not have happened without the London Docklands Development Corporation’s initial ‘localised Keynesianism’ and that the LDDC would not have happened without Michael Heseltine, something reinforced by recently-released archival material. It shows that the LDDC was an extremely un-Thatcherite mechanism for achieving urban regeneration, involving a great deal of intervention in the market, and staffed primarily by public sector officials, many of whom arrived from left-wing Labour councils elsewhere in London.
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Notes
- 1.
More formally referred to as ‘the Cabinet Minister with special responsibility for Merseyside’ by the Prime Minister, during a meeting to discuss Heseltine’s work so far in September 1981.
- 2.
In announcing the policy, a Treasury spokesman claimed that: ‘The government wants to create a powerful new body—similar to what happened in Docklands in the 1980s’.
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Oral History Interviews
Interview with Anonymous Civil Servant by Jack Brown, 5/9/2013.
Interview with Lord Heseltine by Jack Brown, 17/7/2012.
Interview with Sir Peter Hall by Jack Brown, 6/11/2013.
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Brown, J. (2020). ‘Rolling Back the Frontiers of the State, Only to See Them Re-imposed in Docklands?’: Margaret Thatcher, Michael Heseltine and the Contested Parenthood of Canary Wharf. In: Mullen, A., Farrall, S., Jeffery, D. (eds) Thatcherism in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41792-5_5
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