John Grindord blogs about this film, which has just turned up on Youtube:
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."
T Dan, Poulson and speculation about hidden meanings in Get Carter (tip: there weren't any) were part of growing up in the 1970s and early 80s. Aspects of it may have been inspirational, in that local government could affect lives. Councils had the capacity to fund projects which were more than vanity exercises dressed up.
ReplyDeleteSir Robert Mark became boss of the Metropolitan police, promising to "arrest more criminals than we employ". Did that work?