T Dan Smith film from 1986
On the 27th March 1986 BBC2 broadcast a documentary called T. Dan Smith on the 70th birthday of Mr Newcastle himself. Smith, out of prison after serving a corruption charge for his part in the John Poulson scandal, is interviewed and is his usual pugnacious self. 'I would rather have a scheme like this,' he says, indicating a series of Poulson-designed system built towers, 'corruptly conceived, than houses like we did have honestly conceived.'
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| Arne Jacobsen's hotel design |
What's interesting here is the testimony of people who knew him. Guardian journalist Derek Senior, Times editor Harold Evans and left-wing hero Paul Foot all recall their conflicting feelings with regard to Smith and his legacy. The general consensus appears to be that he did good work via dodgy means. Perhaps we have become more moralistic since, because I find it hard to imagine a politician jailed for corruption today who would have so much support from such ethically minded sorts.
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| John Poulson |
One thing I was pleased to see what Evans giving props to the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, and particularly to Ray Fitzwalter, the journalist who uncovered the scandal at the paper and spent years trying to drag the dealings of Smith, Poulson, Maudling and the rest out from the shadows and into the harsh light of examination. I was lucky enough to interview Fitzwalter for Concretopia, and his telling of the tale was utterly gripping.
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| Dan Smith with Dame Evelyn Sharp |
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| Reginald Maudling |
This is a wonderful thing to have turned up on YouTube. The film has been chopped about a bit, but we still have 30 minutes of invaluable archive film here from a hugely significant moment in Newcastle's recent past. Big thanks, as ever, to people who have access to this sort of stuff who put it back into the public domain.
As a NE Labour Member and a Teesside Councillor (now old enough to be a veteran) I did sign the round robin letter in the early 1990's asking the powers that be in the Party to readmit Dan. It is a delicate argument, but it could be asserted that in the absence of today's strict rules for local government officers and members in terms of interest and in the putting out and awarding of contracts, Dan did not infringe any of the then rules in local government. It could not happen now i believe, but I could be proved wrong.
ReplyDeleteThis video was posted to Youtube by the blogger Single Aspect on his Flamingo Wader account and obtained from a friend in SW London who shall remain nameless but recorded it to VHS in the 1980s.
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