Illtyd Harrington: Flamboyant politician best known as Ken Livingstone’s right-hand man in last years of the GLC

Livingstone told Harrington that he was ‘the acceptable face of extremism’

Illtyd Harrington the Deputy leader and Andrew McIntosh the Leader pictured at County Hall celebrating the Labour win over the Conservatives in the GLC (Getty)

Illtyd Harrington was a Welshman who made a national name in London politics, bringing to the city’s local government – as he did to everything he ventured, a flamboyance rarely seen in municipal politics.

He never achieved his parliamentary ambitions, although he cut the Tory majority in half in Wembley North in the 1964 general election and expressed “bitter disappointment” at twice being turned down as candidate for his home town of Merthyr. He was a Paddington Borough councillor (1959-1964) and from 1964 a Westminster City councillor, where his two terms (including a period as deputy Labour group leader) partly coincided with his membership of the Greater London Council, to which he was also elected in 1964. He was deputy leader from 1973-1977 but came to national prominence in the same post as Ken Livingstone’s No 2 from 1981 to 1984.

When the leader Sir Reg Goodwin stepped down in 1980, Harrington, a non-Marxist left-winger of the Michael Foot-Tribune stripe, was his natural heir. Distrusted by the right, he had antagonised the left by pushing through cuts.

The right-winger, Andrew (later Lord) Macintosh beat Livingstone for the leadership in the third round, and Harrington then decisively beat little-known Livingstone for the deputy’s job with 21 votes to seven. Macintosh was then deposed in a Livingstone coup in 1981 the day after Labour returned to power at County Hall.

Harrington said that Livingstone told him that he was the “acceptable face of extremism”, but he never played second fiddle to Livingstone, and not only reined in some (but not all) of his policies, but ploughed his own furrow. He summed up Livingstone’s regime as “alarming to begin with, confusing after that, and then extraordinarily competent in the last stage”. Whether Margaret Thatcher would have abolished the GLC had Harrington been leader is a moot point.

Harrington was witty, articulate and a fluent and amusing writer, gifted with a facility for the trenchant put-down. He was apt to boast about with whom he had dinner or had met at a party, but these were not idle boasts. At dinner once at County Hall I found that fellow guests were the poet Adrian Henri and the art critic Edward Lucie-Smith.

His partner of 50 years, Chris Downes, who died in 2003, was a dresser at the National to everyone from Olivier to Maggie Smith, and Harrington naturally fell into and relished such company, being much the showman himself. He served on the board of the National Theatre when the GLC supported the opening of its South Bank complex in 1976, and also on other theatre boards. His nephew is the actor Richard Harrington.

His father, Timothy, was a Communist, who under cover of night snuck off to fight Franco in the Spanish Civil War. His mother, Sarah (née Burchell), was a Catholic of Irish descent, who once beat up a local fascist leader. She sold her wedding ring to feed the family.

Harrington attended Merthyr’s St Illtyd Catholic primary school and the county school. When he was 15 he went to London and climbed to the top of St Paul’s Cathedral. He said later, “I knew I would have to do something in [London] – and that was it. Coming from postwar South Wales, we knew what austerity was. By comparison, London was the land of milk and honey. I wanted my share of milk and a little honey.”

Harrington trained as a teacher at Trinity University College, Carmarthen (now part of the University of Wales). He first taught in Brixton and I encountered him when he taught me English at Edith Cavell School, Hackney. He never disdained corporal punishment, but allied it with joviality, amiability, and the cultivation of pupils who showed promise. He ended up as head of English at Daneford School, Bethnal Green, where he brought in people like Tony Benn, then Minister of Technology, Will Paynter, ex-head of the NUM, and Des Wilson, director of the fledgling Shelter, to talk to the pupils.

At the GLC he helped create the Freedom Pass for free travel for older people and other groups, and he later backed Fares Fare, which cut prices by a third. He was instrumental in the Regent’s Canal being opened up to the public. A member of various canal and waterways bodies, he frequently intervened to stop the closure of canals or official hindering of restoration. He was the GLC’s final chair, from 1984 to 1984.

Never forswearing his left-wing allegiance, in later years he wrote on books and arts for the Camden New Journal, often acerbically settling old political scores. Asked in a television programme how he and Chris Downes had lived openly as gay men at a time when homosexuality was illegal and he held public office, Harrington said, “We did it openly. There were lots of men and women like us. We didn’t advertise, putting a sign up – we just got on with our lives.”

He is survived by a sister, Kathleen, and a brother, Paul.

Illtyd Harrington, politician and teacher: born Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil 14 July 1931; partner to Chris Downes (died 2003); died Brighton 1 October 2015.