In & Against

The rise and fall of municipal socialism

When: Tuesday, 13th January, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Where: Zoom (link available after RSVP)

For our first event in our In and Against series, we are thrilled to be welcoming the author, cultural critic and historian Owen Hatherley. Owen will be joining councillor and GO Steering Group member Hau-Yu Tam to discuss municipal socialism, its rise and fall and what it can teach us about centralisation of power in Westminster. Owen has written one of the more definitive books on municipal socialism, Red Metropolis: Socialism and the Government of London.

Owen writes: ‘’London is conventionally seen as merely a combination of the financial centre in the City and the centre of governmental power in Westminster, a uniquely capitalist capital city. This book is about the third London – a social democratic twentieth-century metropolis, a pioneer in council housing, public enterprise, socialist design, radical local democracy and multiculturalism.’’ 

Join us to get a grounding in what went so wrong with the British system examined through the lens of its capital, and what inspiration and lessons modern eco-municipalists can draw out from this fascinating history.