Secret plot to strip Glasgow of influence

THE post-war British government had a secret and systematic plan to strip Glasgow of its political dominance and economic might within Scotland, new historical research claimed yesterday.

For 25 years, the Edinburgh-based Scottish Office plotted to downgrade the importance of the nation’s largest city, according to the study.

Professor Ian Levitt, of the University of Central Lancashire, claims that civil servants in the capital “perverted” post-war regeneration efforts to create a mass exodus from Glasgow. The Edinburgh-born academic claims he has unearthed damaging documentary evidence which shows the Scottish Office tried to: keep new industry and jobs out of the city; move existing firms from Glasgow; drive residents into new towns; prevent the local authority from having control over these new areas and stop Glasgow extending its borders.

Prof Levitt said: “The motto of the Scottish Office would not have been ‘Let Glasgow flourish’, more like ‘Let Glasgow Diminish’. Put simply, I think the Scottish Office had a political problem with Glasgow, because Glasgow appeared to dominate Scottish politics and Scottish cultural life.

“They thought Glasgow was somehow tainted.”

During the period from the 1950s to the 1970s, a number of new towns were built a considerable distance from Glasgow’s boundaries to accommodate people from slum clearances.

These included Livingston, in West Lothian, and Glenrothes, in Fife, rather than the villages of Renfrewshire which had originally been proposed.

Documents reportedly show the Scottish Office planned to cut Glasgow’s population from 1.2 million people to just 600,000.

Prof Levitt also claims he has uncovered a continuous effort to discourage economic development in the city. He believes these policies paved the way for the problems of unemployment, bad health and poverty which blight areas of the city today and place several constituencies among the poorest in Europe.

In secret advice to Scottish ministers in 1960, the Board of Trade said: “The Department of Health have been anxious to ensure that no major new incoming industry to Scotland should go into Glasgow.”

Another documents states: “Since about 1953 the Department of Health have sought the co-operation in discouraging large projects from setting in or very close to Glasgow ... This line of action became progressively more embarrassing when unemployment in Glasgow increased.”

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: “This is proof of what people have long suspected.”

A spokesman for the Scotland Office said: “The Secretary of State would not want to pass comment on government policy from 30 to 40 years ago.”