FEELINGS about the poll tax were running high when this protest was staged in Glasgow in April 1988.
In the House of Commons, the Thatcher government’s flagship legislation had survived a key vote with a majority of 25, with 38 Conservative MPs voting against and others abstaining.
The new clause in the Local Government Finance Bill, insisting on ability to pay the tax, resulted in the smallest Commons majority for Margaret Thatcher since her election victory in June 1987.
“A government defeat on this issue”, noted our political editor, Geoffrey Parkhouse, “would have wrecked the flat-rate principle of the poll tax both in Scotland and south of the border”.
The result of the vote saw Ron Brown, the Labour MP for Edinburgh Leith and a prominent anti-poll tax campaigner, damaged the Commons mace by seizing it and dropping it. He was subsequently suspended for 20 sitting days, and ordered to pay for repairs to the mace.
The government then stirred controversy by announcing that poll-tax defaulters would face cuts in their social security benefits; steps would also be taken to recover money from employed people who defaulted.
The Glasgow protest, seen here, was staged by district councillors, including the council leader, Pat Lally (centre).
More than 40 members of the ruling Labour group left the City Chambers to launch their part of the ‘Return to Sender’ campaign.
Mr Lally re-iterated the authority’s complete opposition to the poll tax as he helped to hold the outsize mock-up of a poll-tax form.
He called on Glaswegians to join Labour district councillors in sending back their actual poll-tax forms and requesting more information.
Later, the city council agreed to join the Stop-It anti-poll-tax campaign, and to write to the Scottish Secretary of State, Malcolm Rifkind, calling on him to cancel the introduction of the community charge,
Read more: Herald Diary
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