Jeremy was not only the longest serving city council leader of modern times but also the finest. He restored faith in the integrity of the council only a few years after the corruption scandals of the Dan Smith era, helped steer it through the disruptive aftermath of local government reorganisation and managed its finances astutely through years of what we now call austerity.
Dan Smith’s immediate successors as leader of the council were honourable men, but it was Jeremy’s long period in the top job between 1977 and 1994 that enabled the council to put that era firmly behind it. That is not to say a few individuals were not involved in mainly petty cases of financial misconduct and even one case of corruption, but is a tribute to Jeremy that no one thought of laying them at his door.
He was assisted in his leadership by his independence of powerful factions within the Labour group. Jeremy did not dominate because he had the support of, say, a West End group or a trade union group. He led because of his formidable intellect, which enabled him to master detail, solve problems and put down the Tories in council meetings with his, never unkind, wit. He had the tact, too, to soothe those with a grievance.
Nor was he part of the drinking culture that was so prevalent in the council at the time, as elsewhere in society (including journalism). He was rarely, if ever, to be seen in the Civic Centre bar or any of the nearby pubs, and certainly did not rely on glad-handing for his influence and popularity.
As a solicitor, Jeremy was ever-conscious of the danger of finding himself with a conflict of interest if, for example, a client sought his representation in a case involving a council development. He avoided that risk by leaving planning and development matters, of which there were many going on in the city at the time, to others.
He preferred to concentrate on the needs of his constituents in Benwell (later Benwell and Scotswood), which were far removed from the grandiose schemes in the city centre at the time – the Metro, central motorway and Eldon Square shopping centre. This was made easier for him by the fact that responsibility for first two of those had been taken out of the city council’s hands and passed to the new Tyne & Wear Metropolitan County Council – much to the dismay of some of Jeremy’s city colleagues.
This left Jeremy and the city council free to concentrate on the issues that were most important to many of their voters in areas of multiple deprivation – council housing, education and his own personal interest, social services. Under his leadership the council designated the impoverished wards along the banks of the Tyne, from Scotswood to Walker, as priority areas, into which millions of pounds were poured.
That the council was able to do this without getting into trouble with the government was due to Jeremy’s non-confrontational approach, for it was not long before he took over the leadership that local government’s first age of austerity had begun, when a Labour Environment Secretary, Tony Crosland, told councils in 1975: “The party’s over”. This parsimonious approach to council spending continued with a vengeance when the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher returned to power in 1979, and every year thereafter I seemed to be reporting in the Evening Chronicle that Beecham was heading down to Whitehall to ask Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine for more.
Some council leaders (and deputy leaders) in other parts of the country, most notably Liverpool and Lambeth, reacted angrily by setting illegal budgets, and won themselves reputations as defiantly heroic left-wingers. Not Beecham and Newcastle. He was happy to attack ministers, but not to break the law.
If I have two criticisms of the council during Jeremy’s time as leader, one is that he allowed staffing levels to soar out of control; numbers reached 19,000 at one point. Today, in admittedly very different circumstances, it is a small fraction of that. The other criticism is that the council was too secretive, with too many meetings held behind closed doors and too many documents printed on pink paper (i.e. confidential). Fortunately, there was nearly always someone willing to leak them.
These are not trivial criticisms, but they do not negate Jeremy’s fine overall record as leader of the council over 17 years and his membership over 55 years.
When a Labour councillor from another authority (later an MP) asked me if I thought Newcastle’s was a left-wing council I said “Yes”. Asked why, I replied that the city was spending up to the hilt on the people’s priorities – council housing, education and social services – while staying just on the right side of the law and avoiding futile gestures. Looking back, I still think that was a fair assessment and one Jeremy would not have been displeased with.
*A fuller appreciation of Jeremy by some of those who knew him, including a chapter by this author – Jeremy Beecham: A Quiet Altruist, edited by Jon Gower Davies, – was published in 2022 by Ergo Press, Hexham.
