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Harold Wilson

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People

   The Rt Hon Harold Wilson Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC
   Harold Wilson
     __________________________________________________________________

   Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
   In office
   16 October 1964 –  19 June 1970
   Monarch Elizabeth II
   Preceded by Sir Alec Douglas-Home
   Succeeded by Edward Heath
   In office
   4 March 1974 –  5 April 1976
   Monarch Elizabeth II
   Preceded by Edward Heath
   Succeeded by James Callaghan
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born 11 March 1916
   Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England
   Died 24 May 1995, age 79
   London, England
   Political party Labour
   Spouse Gladys Mary Baldwin
   Alma mater Jesus College, Oxford
   Profession Civil servant and statistician
   Religion Congregationalist

   James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC ( 11
   March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was one of the most prominent British
   politicians of the 20th century. He emerged as Prime Minister after
   more General Elections than any other 20th century Prime Minister of
   the United Kingdom, with majorities of 4 in 1964, 98 in 1966 and 5 in
   October 1974, and with enough seats to form a minority government with
   Ulster Unionist Party support in February 1974.

Birth and early life

   Wilson was born in Huddersfield, England in 1916, an almost exact
   contemporary of his rival, Edward Heath. He came from a political
   family, his father Herbert (1882–1971), a works chemist having been
   active in the Liberal Party and then having joined the Labour Party.
   His mother Ethel (née Seddon; 1882–1957) was a schoolteacher prior to
   he marriage. When Wilson was eight, he visited London and a
   later-to-be-famous photograph was taken of him standing on the doorstep
   of 10 Downing Street.

   Wilson won a scholarship to attend the local grammar school, Royds Hall
   Secondary School, Huddersfield. His education was disrupted in 1931
   when he contracted typhoid fever after drinking contaminated milk on a
   Scouts' outing and took months to recover. The next year his father,
   working as an industrial chemist, was made redundant and moved to
   Spital on the Wirral to find work. Wilson attended the sixth form at
   the Wirral Grammar School for Boys, where he became Head Boy.

University

   Harold Wilson's portrait in the hall at Jesus College, Oxford
   Harold Wilson's portrait in the hall at Jesus College, Oxford

   Wilson did well at school and, although he missed getting a
   scholarship, he obtained an exhibition which when topped up by a county
   grant enabled him to study Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford from
   1934. At Oxford, Wilson was moderately active in politics as a member
   of the Liberal Party but was later influenced by G. D. H. Cole to join
   the Labour Party. After his first year, he changed his field of study
   to Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and he graduated with an
   outstanding first class degree. He continued in academia, becoming one
   of the youngest Oxford University dons of the century.

   Wilson was a lecturer in Economics at New College in 1937 and a
   lecturer in Economic History at University College from 1938 (and was a
   fellow of the latter college 1938–45). For much of this time, he was a
   research assistant to William Beveridge on unemployment and the trade
   cycle.

   In 1940, he married (Gladys) Mary Baldwin, who remained his wife until
   his death. Mary Wilson became a published poet. They had two sons,
   Robin and Giles; Robin became a Professor of Mathematics, and Giles
   became a teacher. In November 2006 it was reported that Giles had given
   up his teaching job and become a train driver for South West Trains.

Wartime service

   On the outbreak of the Second World War, Wilson volunteered for service
   but was classed as a specialist and moved into the Civil Service
   instead. Most of his War was spent as a statistician and economist for
   the coal industry. He was Director of Economics and Statistics at the
   Ministry of Fuel and Power 1943–4.

   He was to remain passionately interested in statistics. As President of
   the Board of Trade, he was the driving force behind the Statistics of
   Trade Act 1947, which is still the authority governing most economic
   statistics in Great Britain. He was instrumental as Prime Minister in
   appointing Claus Moser as head of the Central Statistical Office, and
   was President of the Royal Statistical Society in 1972–73).

In Parliament

   As the War drew to an end, he searched for a seat to fight at the
   impending general election. He was selected for Ormskirk, then held by
   Stephen King-Hall. Wilson accidentally agreed to be adopted as the
   candidate immediately rather than delay until the election was called,
   and was therefore compelled to resign from the Civil Service. He used
   the time in between to write A New Deal for Coal which used his wartime
   experience to argue for nationalisation of the coal mines on the basis
   of improved efficiency.

   In the 1945 general election, Wilson won his seat in line with the
   Labour landslide. To his surprise, he was immediately appointed to the
   government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works. Two
   years later, he became Secretary for Overseas Trade, in which capacity
   he made several official trips to the Soviet Union to negotiate supply
   contracts. Conspiracy-minded critics would later seek to raise
   suspicions about these trips.

   On 14 October 1947, Wilson was appointed President of the Board of
   Trade and, at 31, became the youngest member of the Cabinet in the 20th
   century. He took a lead in abolishing some of the wartime rationing,
   which he referred to as a "bonfire of controls". In the general
   election of 1950, his constituency was altered and he was narrowly
   elected for the new seat of Huyton.

   Wilson was becoming known as a left-winger and joined Aneurin Bevan in
   resigning from the government in April 1951 in protest at the
   introduction of National Health Service (NHS) medical charges to meet
   the financial demands imposed by the Korean War. After the Labour Party
   lost the general election later that year, he was made chairman of
   Bevan's "Keep Left" group, but shortly thereafter he distanced himself
   from Bevan. By coincidence, it was Bevan's further resignation from the
   Shadow Cabinet in 1954 that put Wilson back on the front bench.

Opposition

   Wilson soon proved a very effective Shadow Minister. One of his
   procedural moves caused the loss of the Government's Finance Bill in
   1955, and his speeches as Shadow Chancellor from 1956 were widely
   praised for their clarity and wit. He coined the term " gnomes of
   Zurich" to describe Swiss bankers whom he accused of pushing the pound
   down by speculation. In the meantime, he conducted an inquiry into the
   Labour Party's organisation following its defeat in the 1955 general
   election, which compared the Party organization to an antiquated "penny
   farthing" bicycle, and made various recommendations for improvements.
   Unusually, Wilson combined the job of Chairman of the House of Commons
   Public Accounts Committee with that of Shadow Chancellor from 1959.

   Wilson steered a course in intra-party matters in the 1950s and early
   1960s that left him fully accepted and trusted by neither the left nor
   the right. Despite his earlier association with the left-of-centre
   Aneurin Bevan, in 1955 he backed the right-of-centre Hugh Gaitskell
   against Bevan for the party leadership He then launched an
   opportunistic but unsuccessful challenge to Gaitskell in 1960, in the
   wake of the Labour Party's 1959 defeat, Gaitskell's controversial
   attempt to ditch Labour's commitment to nationalisation in the shape of
   the Party's Clause Four, and Gaitskell's defeat at the 1960 Party
   Conference over a motion supporting Britain's unilateral nuclear
   disarmament. Wilson also challenged for the deputy leadership in 1962
   but was defeated by George Brown. Following these challenges, he was
   moved to the position of Shadow Foreign Secretary.

   Hugh Gaitskell died unexpectedly in January 1963, just as the Labour
   Party had begun to unite and to look to have a good chance of being
   elected to government. Wilson became the left candidate for the
   leadership. He defeated George Brown, who was hampered by a reputation
   as an erratic figure, in a straight contest in the second round of
   balloting, after James Callaghan, who had entered the race as an
   alternative to Brown on the right of the party, had been eliminated in
   the first round.

   Wilson's 1964 election campaign was aided by the Profumo Affair, a 1963
   ministerial sex scandal that had mortally wounded the Conservative
   government of Harold Macmillan and was to taint his successor Sir Alec
   Douglas-Home, even though Home had not been involved in the scandal.
   Wilson made capital without getting involved in the less salubrious
   aspects. (Asked for a statement on the scandal, he reportedly said "No
   comment... in glorious Technicolor!"). Home was an aristocrat who had
   given up his title as Lord Home to sit in the House of Commons. To
   Wilson's comment that he was the fourteenth Earl of Home, Home retorted
   "I suppose Mr. Wilson is the fourteenth Mr. Wilson".

   At the Labour Party's 1963 annual conference, Wilson made possibly his
   best-remembered speech, on the implications of scientific and
   technological change, in which he argued that "the Britain that is
   going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no
   place for restrictive practices or for outdated measures on either side
   of industry". This speech did much to set Wilson's reputation as a
   technocrat not tied to the prevailing class system.

Prime Minister

   Labour won the 1964 general election with a narrow majority of four
   seats, and Wilson became Prime Minister. This was an insufficient
   parliamentary majority to last for a full term, and after 18 months, a
   second election in March 1966 returned Wilson with the much larger
   majority of 96.
   Harold and Mary Wilson with Richard and Pat Nixon at the White House in
   1970.
   Harold and Mary Wilson with Richard and Pat Nixon at the White House in
   1970.

Economic policies

   In economic terms, Wilson's first three years in office were dominated
   by an ultimately doomed effort to stave off the devaluation of the
   pound. He inherited an unusually large external deficit on the balance
   of trade. This partly reflected the preceding government's expansive
   fiscal policy in the run-up to the 1964 election, and the incoming
   Wilson team tightened the fiscal stance in response. Many British
   economists advocated devaluation, but Wilson resisted, reportedly in
   part out of concern that Labour, which had previously devalued sterling
   in 1949, would become tagged as "the party of devaluation".

   After a costly battle, market pressures forced the government into
   devaluation in 1967. Wilson was much criticized for a broadcast in
   which he assured listeners that the "pound in your pocket" had not lost
   its value. It was widely forgotten that his next sentence had been
   "prices will rise". Economic performance did show some improvement
   after the devaluation, as economists had predicted.

   A main theme of Wilson's economic approach was to place enhanced
   emphasis on "indicative economic planning." He created a new Department
   of Economic Affairs to generate ambitious targets that were in
   themselves supposed to help stimulate investment and growth. Though now
   out of fashion, faith in this approach was at the time by no means
   confined to the Labour Party -- Wilson built on foundations that had
   been laid by his Conservative predecessors, in the shape, for example,
   of the National Economic Development Council (known as "Neddy") and its
   regional counterparts (the "little Neddies").

   The continued relevance of industrial nationalisation (a centerpiece of
   the post-War Labour government's programme) had been a key point of
   contention in Labour's internal struggles of the 1950's and early
   1960's. Wilson's predecessor as leader, Hugh Gaitskell, had tried in
   1960 to tackle the controversy head-on, with a proposal to expunge
   Clause Four (the public ownership clause) from the party's
   constitution, but had been forced to climb down. Wilson took a
   characteristically more subtle approach. He threw the party's left wing
   a symbolic bone with the renationalisation of the steel industry, but
   otherwise left Clause Four formally in the constitution but in practice
   on the shelf.

   Wilson made periodic attempts to mitigate inflation through wage-price
   controls, better known in the UK as "prices and incomes policy". Partly
   as a result, the government tended to find itself repeatedly injected
   into major industrial disputes, with late-night "beer and sandwiches at
   Number Ten" an almost routine culmination to such episodes. Among the
   more damaging of the numerous strikes during Wilson's periods in office
   was a six-week stoppage by the National Union of Seamen, beginning
   shortly after Wilson's re-election in 1966. With public frustration
   over strikes mounting, Wilson's government in 1969 proposed a series of
   reforms to the legal basis for industrial relations (labour law) in the
   UK, which were outlined in a White Paper entitled " In Place of
   Strife". Following a confrontation with the Trades Union Congress,
   however, which strongly opposed the proposals, the government
   substantially backed-down from its proposals. Some elements of these
   reforms were subsequently to be revived (in modified form) as a
   centerpiece of the premiership of Margaret Thatcher.

External affairs

   Overseas, while Britain's retreat from Empire had by 1964 already
   progressed a long way (and was to continue during his terms in office),
   Wilson was troubled by a major crisis over the future of the British
   crown colony of Rhodesia. Wilson refused to concede official
   independence to the Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith, who led a white
   minority government which resisted extending the vote to the majority
   black population. Smith in response proclaimed Rhodesia's Unilateral
   Declaration of Independence on November 11, 1965. Wilson was applauded
   by most nations for taking a firm stand on the issue (and none extended
   diplomatic recognition to the Smith regime). He declined, however, to
   intervene in Rhodesia with military force, believing the UK population
   would not support such action against their "kith and kin". Smith
   subsequently attacked Wilson in his memoirs, accusing him of delaying
   tactics during negotiations and alleging duplicity; Wilson responded in
   kind, questioning Smith's good faith and suggesting that Smith had
   moved the goal-posts whenever a settlement appeared in sight.

   Despite considerable pressure from US President Lyndon Johnson for at
   least a token involvement of British military units in the Vietnam War,
   Wilson consistently avoided such a commitment of British forces. His
   government offered some rhetorical support for the US position (most
   prominently in the defense offered by then-Foreign Secretary Michael
   Stewart in a much-publicized "teach in" or debate on Vietnam), and on
   at least one occasion made an unsuccessful effort to intermediate in
   the conflict. On 28 June 1966 Wilson 'dissociated' his Government from
   Johnson's bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. From a contemporary viewpoint,
   some commentators have attached new significance to Wilson's
   independent line on Vietnam in light of Britain's participation in the
   Iraq War (2003) with the US Government.

   In 1967, Wilson's Government lodged the UK's second application to join
   the European Economic Community. Like the first, made under Harold
   Macmillan, it was vetoed by the French President Charles de Gaulle.

   That same year, Wilson announced the Britain would withdraw its
   military forces from major bases ' East of Suez', effectively bringing
   Britain's empire to an end and marking a major shift in Britain's
   global defence strategy in the twentieth century.

Social issues

   Wilson's period in office witnessed a range of social reforms,
   including abolition of capital punishment, decriminalisation of
   homosexual acts between consenting adults in private, liberalisation of
   abortion law, divorce reform, and abolition of theatre censorship. Such
   reforms were mostly adopted on non-party votes, but the large Labour
   majority after 1966 was undoubtedly more open to such changes than
   previous parliaments had been. Wilson personally, coming culturally
   from a provincial non-conformist background, showed no particular
   enthusiasm for much of this agenda (which some linked to the
   "permissive society"), but the reforming climate was especially
   encouraged by Roy Jenkins during his period at the Home Office.

   Wilson's 1966-70 term witnessed growing public concern over the level
   of immigration to the United Kingdom. The issue was dramatised at the
   political level by a strongly-worded speech by the Conservative
   politician Enoch Powell, who was dismissed from the Shadow Cabinet as a
   result. Wilson's government adopted a two-track approach. While
   condemning racial discrimination (and adopting legislation to make it a
   legal offense), Wilson's Home Secretary James Callaghan introduced
   significant new restrictions on the right of immigration to the United
   Kingdom.

Electoral defeat and return to office

   By 1969, the Labour Party was suffering serious electoral reverses. In
   May 1970, Wilson responded to an apparent recovery in his government's
   popularity by calling a general election, but, to the surprise of most
   observers, was defeated at the polls.

   Wilson survived as leader of the Labour party in opposition. He
   returned to 10 Downing Street in 1974, after defeating the Conservative
   government under Edward Heath in February 1974, as leader of a minority
   Labour Government. He gained a majority in another election shortly
   afterwards, in October 1974.

   Among the most challenging political dilemmas Wilson faced in
   opposition and on his return to power was the issue of British
   membership of the European Community (EC), which had been negotiated by
   the Heath administration following de Gaulle's fall from power in
   France. The Labour party was deeply divided on the issue, and risked a
   major split. Wilson showed political ingenuity in devising a position
   that both sides of the party could agree on. Labour's manifesto in 1974
   thus included a pledge to renegotiate terms for Britain's membership
   and then hold a referendum (a constitutional procedure without
   precedent in British history) on whether to stay in the EC on the new
   terms. A referendum on the retention was duly held on 5 June 1975.
   Rather than the normal British tradition of the government taking a
   position which all its members were required to support publicly,
   members of the Government were free to present their views on either
   side of the question. In the event, continued membership passed.

Northern Ireland

   In the late 1960s, Wilson's government witnessed the outbreak of The
   Troubles in Northern Ireland. In response to a request from the
   government of the province, the government agreed to deploy the British
   army in an effort to maintain the peace. Out of office in the autumn of
   1971, Wilson formulated a 16-point, 15 year program that was designed
   to pave the way for the unification of Ireland. The proposal was
   welcomed in principle by the Heath government at the time, but never
   put into effect.

   In May 1974, he condemned the Unionist-controlled Ulster Workers'
   Strike as a " sectarian strike" which was "being done for sectarian
   purposes having no relation to this century but only to the seventeenth
   century". However he refused to pressure a reluctant British Army to
   face down the loyalist paramilitaries who were intimidating utility
   workers. In a later television speech he referred to the "loyalist"
   strikers and their supporters as "spongers" who expected Britain to pay
   for their lifestyles. The strike was eventually successful in breaking
   the power-sharing Northern Ireland executive.

Wilson and education

   Wilson was a bright boy who had made the most of his opportunities.
   This gave him a belief that education was key to giving working-class
   children the chance of a better future.

   In practical terms, Wilson continued the rapid creation of new
   universities, in line with the recommendations of the Robbins Report, a
   bipartisan policy already in train when Labour took power. Alas, the
   economic difficulties of the period deprived the tertiary system of the
   resources it needed. However, university expansion remained a core
   policy. One notable effect was the first entry of women into university
   education in significant numbers.

   Wilson also deserves credit for grasping the concept of an Open
   University, to give adults who had missed out on tertiary education a
   second chance through part-time study and distance learning. His
   political commitment included assigning implementation responsibility
   to Baroness Jennie Lee, the widow of Labour's iconic left-wing tribune
   Aneurin Bevan.

   Wilson's record on secondary education is, by contrast, highly
   controversial. A fuller description is in the article Education in
   England. Two factors played a role. Following the Education Act 1944
   there was disaffection with the tripartite system of
   academically-oriented Grammar schools for a small proportion of
   "gifted" children, and Technical and Secondary Modern schools for the
   majority of children. Pressure grew for the abolition of the selective
   principle underlying the " eleven plus", and replacement with
   Comprehensive schools which would serve the full range of children (see
   the article Debates on the grammar school). Comprehensive education
   became Labour Party policy.

   Labour pressed local authorities to convert grammar schools, many of
   them cherished local institutions, into comprehensives. Conversion
   continued on a large scale during the subsequent Conservative Heath
   administration, although the Secretary of State, Mrs Margaret Thatcher,
   ended the compulsion of local governments to convert. While the
   proclaimed goal was to level school quality up, many felt that the
   grammar schools' excellence was being sacrificed with little to show in
   the way of improvement of other schools. Critically handicapping
   implementation, economic austerity meant that schools never received
   sufficient funding.

   A second factor affecting education was change in teacher training,
   including introduction of "progressive" child-centered methods,
   abhorred by many established teachers. In parallel, the profession
   became increasingly politicised. The status of teaching suffered and is
   still recovering.

   Few nowadays question the unsatisfactory nature of secondary education
   in 1964. Change was overdue. However, the manner in which change was
   carried out is certainly open to criticism. The issue became a priority
   for ex-Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher when she came to office in
   1979.

   In 1966, Wilson was created the first Chancellor of the newly created
   University of Bradford, a position he held until 1985.

Resignation

   On 16 March 1976, Wilson surprised the nation by announcing his
   resignation as Prime Minister. He claimed that he had always planned on
   resigning at the age of sixty, and that he was physically and mentally
   exhausted. As early as the late 1960s, he had been telling intimates,
   like his doctor Sir Joseph Stone (later Lord Stone of Hendon), that he
   did not intend to serve more than eight or nine years as Prime
   Minister. However, by 1976 he was probably also aware of the first
   stages of early-onset Alzheimer's disease, as both his formerly
   excellent memory and powers of concentration began to fail
   dramatically.
   The Garter Banner of Lord Wilson of Rievaulx, Jesus College Chapel,
   Oxford
   The Garter Banner of Lord Wilson of Rievaulx, Jesus College Chapel,
   Oxford

   Queen Elizabeth II came to dine at 10 Downing Street to mark his
   resignation, an honour she has bestowed on only one other Prime
   Minister, Sir Winston Churchill.

   Wilson's resignation honours list included many businessmen and
   celebrities, along with his political supporters. It caused lasting
   damage to his reputation when it was revealed that the first draft of
   the list had been written by Marcia Williams on lavender notepaper (it
   became known as The Lavender List). Some of those whom Wilson honoured
   included Lord Kagan, eventually imprisoned for fraud, and Sir Eric
   Miller, who later committed suicide while under police investigation
   for corruption.

   Tony Benn, James Callaghan, Anthony Crosland, Michael Foot, Denis
   Healey and Roy Jenkins stood in the first ballot to replace him.
   Jenkins was initially tipped as the favourite but came third on the
   initial ballot. In the final ballot on 5 April, Callaghan defeated Foot
   in a parliamentary vote of 176 to 137, thus becoming Wilson's successor
   as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party.

   As Wilson wished to remain an MP after leaving office, he was not
   immediately given the peerage customarily offered to retired Prime
   Ministers, but instead was created a Knight of the Garter. On leaving
   the House of Commons in 1983, he was created Baron Wilson of Rievaulx,
   after Rievaulx Abbey, in the north of his native Yorkshire.

Death

   Not long after Wilson's retirement, his mental deterioration from
   Alzheimer's disease began to be apparent, and he rarely appeared in
   public after 1987. He died of colon cancer in May 1995, at the age of
   79. He is buried on St Mary's, Isles of Scilly. His epitaph is Tempus
   Imperator Rerum (Time Commands All Things). His memorial service was
   held in Westminster Abbey on 13 July.

Political "style"

   Wilson regarded himself as a "man of the people" and did much to
   promote this image, contrasting himself with the stereotypical
   aristocratic conservatives who had preceded him. Features of this
   portrayal included his working man's 'Gannex' raincoat, his pipe
   (though in private he smoked cigars), his love of simple cooking and
   overuse of the popular British relish, ' HP Sauce', his support for his
   home town's football team, Huddersfield, and his working-class
   Yorkshire accent. Eschewing continental holidays, he returned every
   summer with his family to the Isles of Scilly. His first general
   election victory relied heavily on associating these down-to-earth
   attributes with a sense that the UK urgently needed to modernise, after
   "thirteen years of Tory mis-rule...."

   Wilson exhibited his populist touch in 1965 when he had The Beatles
   honoured with the award the MBE. (Such awards are officially bestowed
   by The Queen but are nominated by the Prime Minister of the day.) The
   award was popular with young people and contributed to a sense that the
   Prime Minister was "in touch" with the younger generation. There were
   some protests by conservatives and elderly members of the military who
   were earlier recipients of the award, but such protesters were in the
   minority. Critics claimed that Wilson acted to solicit votes for the
   next general election (which took place less than a year later), but
   defenders noted that, since the mimimum voting age at that time was 21,
   this was hardly likely to impact many of the Beatles' fans who at that
   time were predominantly teenagers. It did however cement Wilson's image
   as a modernistic leader and linked him to the burgeoning pride in the
   'New Britain' typified by the Beatles.

   One year later, in 1967, Wilson had a different interaction with a
   musical ensemble. He sued the pop group The Move for libel after the
   band's manager Tony Secunda published a promotional postcard for the
   single Flowers In The Rain, featuring a caricature depicting Wilson in
   bed with his female assistant, Marcia Falkender (later Baroness
   Falkender). Wild gossip had hinted at an improper relationship, though
   these rumours were never substantiated. Wilson won the case, and all
   royalties from the song (composed by Move leader Roy Wood) were
   assigned in perpetuity to a charity of Wilson's choosing.

   Wilson had a knack for memorable phrases. He coined the term " Selsdon
   Man" to refer to the anti-interventionist policies of the Conservative
   leader Edward Heath, developed at a policy retreat held at the Selsdon
   Park Hotel in early 1970. This phrase, intended to evoke the "primitive
   throwback" qualities of anthropological discoveries such as Piltdown
   Man and Swanscombe Man, was part of a British political tradition of
   referring to political trends by suffixing man. Another famous quote is
   "A week is a long time in politics": this signifies that political
   fortunes can change extremely rapidly. Other memorable phrases
   attributed to Wilson include "the white heat of the [technological]
   revolution" and his comment after the 1967 devaluation of the pound:
   "This does not mean that the pound here in Britain — in your pocket or
   purse — is worth any less....", usually now quoted as "the pound in
   your pocket".

Reputation

   Despite his successes and onetime popularity, Harold Wilson's
   reputation has not yet recovered from its low ebb following his second
   premiership. Some claim he did not do enough to modernise the Labour
   Party, or that an alleged preoccupation with political in-fighting came
   at the expense of governing the country. This line of argument partly
   blames Wilson for the civil unrest of the late 1970s (during Britain's
   Winter of Discontent), and for the success of the Conservative party
   and its ensuing 18-year rule. His supporters argue that it was only
   Wilson's own skillful management that allowed an otherwise fractious
   party to stay politically united and govern. In either case this
   co-existence did not long survive his leadership, and the factionalism
   that followed contributed greatly to the Labour Party's low ebb during
   the 1980s. For many voters, Thatcherism emerged politically as the only
   alternative [see TINA] to the excesses of trade-union power. Meanwhile,
   the reinvention of the Labour Party would take the better part of two
   decades, at the hands of Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair.

   In 1964, when he took office, the mainstream of informed opinion (in
   all the main political parties, in academia and the media, etc.)
   strongly favored the type of technocratic, "indicative planning"
   approach that Wilson endeavored to implement. Radical market reforms,
   of the kind eventually adopted by Margaret Thatcher, were in the
   mid-1960s backed only by a "fringe" of enthusiasts (such as the
   leadership of the later-influential Institute of Economic Affairs), and
   had almost no representation at senior levels even of the Conservative
   Party. Fifteen years later, disillusionment with Britain's weak
   economic performance and the unsatisfactory state of industrial
   relations, combined with active spadework by figures such as Sir Keith
   Joseph, had helped to make a radical market programme politically
   feasible for Margaret Thatcher (and in turn to influence the subsequent
   Labour leadership, especially under Tony Blair). To suppose that Wilson
   could have adopted such a line in 1964 is, however, anachronistic: like
   almost any political leader, Wilson was fated to work (sometimes
   skillfully and successfully, sometimes not) with the ideas that were in
   the air at the time.

MI5 plots?

   In 1963, Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn is said to have secretly
   claimed that Wilson was a KGB agent. The majority of intelligence
   officers did not believe that Golitsyn was a genuine defector but a
   significant number did (most prominently James Jesus Angleton, the
   Deputy Director of Counter-Intelligence at the U.S. Central
   Intelligence Agency (CIA)) and factional strife broke out between the
   two groups. The book Spycatcher (an exposé of MI5) alleged that 30 MI5
   agents then collaborated in an attempt to undermine Wilson. The author
   Peter Wright (a former member of MI5) later claimed that his
   ghostwriter had written 30 when he had meant 3. Many of Wright's claims
   are controversial, and a ministerial statement reported that an
   internal investigation failed to find any evidence to support the
   allegations.

   Several other voices beyond Wright have raised claims of "dirty tricks"
   on the part of elements within the intelligence services against Wilson
   while he was in office. In March 1987, James Miller, a former MI5
   agent, claimed that MI5 had encouraged the Ulster Workers' Council
   general strike in 1974 in order to destabilise Wilson's Government. See
   also: Walter Walker and David Stirling. In July 1987, Labour MP Ken
   Livingstone used his maiden speech to raise the 1975 allegations of a
   former Army Press officer in Northern Ireland, Colin Wallace, who also
   alleged a plot to destabilise Wilson. Chris Mullin, MP, speaking on
   23rd of November, 1988, argued that sources other than Peter Wright
   supported claims of a long-standing attempt by the intelligence
   services (MI5) to undermine Wilson's government

   A BBC programme The Plot Against Harold Wilson, broadcast in 2006,
   reported that, in tapes recorded soon after his resignation on health
   grounds, Wilson stated that for 8 months of his premiership he didn't
   "feel he knew what was going on, fully, in security". Wilson alleged
   two plots, in the late 1960s and mid 1970s respectively. He said that
   plans had been hatched to install Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Duke of
   Edinburgh's uncle and mentor, as interim Prime Minister. He also
   claimed that ex-military leaders had been building up private armies in
   anticipation of "wholesale domestic liquidation".

   In the documentary some of Wilson's allegations received partial
   confirmation in interviews with ex-intelligence officers and others,
   who reported that, on two occasions during Wilson's terms in office,
   they had talked about a possible coup to take over the government.

   On a separate track, elements within MI5 had also, the BBC programme
   reported, spread "black propaganda" that Wilson and Williams were
   Soviet agents, and that Wilson was an IRA sympathiser, apparently with
   the intention of helping the Conservatives win the 1974 election.

   For the factual basis for the Mountbatten reference, see "Other
   Conspiracy Theories" below.

Other conspiracy theories

   Richard Hough, in his 1980 biography of Mountbatten, indicates that
   Mountbatten was in fact approached during the 1960s in connection with
   a scheme to install an "emergency government" in place of Wilson's
   administration. The approach was made by Cecil Harmsworth King, the
   chairman of the International Printing Corporation (IPC), which
   published the Daily Mirror newspaper. Hough bases his account on
   conversations with the Mirror's long-time editor Hugh Cudlipp,
   supplemented by the recollections of the scientist Solly Zuckerman and
   of Mountbatten’s valet, William Evans. Cudlipp arranged for Mountbatten
   to meet King on 8 May 1968. King had long yearned to play a more
   central political role, and had personal grudges against Wilson
   (including Wilson's refusal to propose King for the hereditary earldom
   that King coveted). He had already failed in an earlier attempt to
   replace Wilson with James Callaghan. With Britain's continuing economic
   difficulties and industrial strife in the 1960s, King convinced himself
   that Wilson's government was heading towards collapse. He thought that
   Mountbatten, as a Royal and a former Chief of the Defence Staff, would
   command public support as leader of a non-democratic "emergency"
   government. Mountbatten insisted that his friend, Zuckerman, be present
   (Zuckerman says that he was urged to attend by Mountbatten’s
   son-in-law, Lord Brabourne, who worried King would lead Mountbatten
   astray). King asked Mountbatten if he would be willing to head an
   emergency government. Zuckerman said the idea was treachery and
   Mountbatten in turn rebuffed King. He does not, however, appear to have
   reported the approach to Downing Street.

   The question of how serious a threat to democracy may have existed
   during these years continues to be controversial -- a key point at
   issue being who of any consequence would have been ready to move beyond
   grumbling about the government (or spreading rumours) to actively
   taking unconstitutional action. King himself was an inveterate schemer
   but an inept actor on the political stage. More fundamentally, Denis
   Healey, who served for six years as Wilson's Secretary of State for
   Defence, has argued that actively serving senior British military
   officers would not have been prepared to overthrow a
   constitutionally-elected government. By the time of his resignation,
   Wilson's own perceptions of any threat may have been exacerbated by the
   onset of Alzheimer's; his inherent tendency to suspiciousness was
   undoubtedly stoked by some in his inner circle, notably including
   Marcia Williams. Perhaps significantly, when Cecil King penned a
   strongly worded editorial against Wilson for the Daily Mirror two days
   after his abortive meeting with Mountbatten, the unanimous reaction of
   IPC's directors was to fire him with immediate effect from his position
   as Chairman.

   Files released on 1 June 2005 show that Wilson was concerned that,
   while on the Isles of Scilly, he was being monitored by Russian ships
   disguised as trawlers. MI5 found no evidence of this, but told him not
   to use a walkie-talkie.)

   Wilson's Government took strong action against the controversial,
   self-styled Church of Scientology in 1967, banning foreign
   Scientologists from entering the UK (a prohibition which remained in
   force until 1980). In response, L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's founder,
   accused Wilson of being in cahoots with Soviet Russia and an
   international conspiracy of psychiatrists and financiers. Wilson's
   Minister of Health, Kenneth Robinson, subsequently won a libel suit
   against the Church and Hubbard.

Harold Wilson's first government, October 1964 - June 1970

   Initial Cabinet
     * Harold Wilson - Prime Minister
     * George Brown - First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for
       Economic Affairs
     * Lord Gardiner - Lord Chancellor
     * Herbert Bowden - Lord President of the Council
     * Lord Longford - Lord Privy Seal
     * James Callaghan - Chancellor of the Exchequer
     * Patrick Gordon Walker - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
     * Sir Frank Soskice - Secretary of State for the Home Department
     * Fred Peart - Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
     * Anthony Greenwood - Secretary of State for the Colonies
     * Arthur Bottomley - Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
     * Denis Healey - Secretary of State for Defence
     * Michael Stewart - Secretary of State for Education and Science
     * Richard Crossman - Minister of Housing and Local Government
     * Barbara Castle - Minister for Overseas Development
     * Ray Gunter - Minister of Labour
     * Douglas Houghton - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
     * Frederick Lee - Minister of Power
     * William Ross - Secretary of State for Scotland
     * Frank Cousins - Minister of Technology
     * Douglas Jay - President of the Board of Trade
     * Thomas Fraser - Minister of Transport
     * Jim Griffiths - Secretary of State for Wales
     * Margaret Herbison - Minister of Pensions and National Insurance

   Changes
     * January 1965 - Michael Stewart succeeds Patrick Gordon Walker as
       Foreign Secretary. Anthony Crosland succeeds Stewart as Education
       Secretary.
     * December 1965 - Barbara Castle succeeds Thomas Fraser as Minister
       of Transport. Anthony Greenwood succeeds Castle as Minister of
       Overseas Development. Lord Longford succeeds Greenwood as Colonial
       Secretary. Sir Frank Soskice succeeds Lord Longford as Lord Privy
       Seal. Roy Jenkins succeeds Soskice as Home Secretary.
     * April 1966 - Lord Longford succeeds Sir Frank Soskice as Lord Privy
       Seal. Frederick Lee succeeds Longford as Colonial Secretary.
       Richard Marsh succeeds Lee as Minister of Power. Douglas Houghton
       resigns as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. His successor is
       not in the cabinet. Cledwyn Hughes succeeds Jim Griffiths as Welsh
       Secretary.
     * July 1966 - Tony Benn succeeds Frank Cousins as Minister of
       Technology.

   After reshuffle, August 1966
     * Harold Wilson - Prime Minister
     * Michael Stewart - First Secretary of State and Secretary of State
       for Economic Affairs
     * Lord Gardiner - Lord Chancellor
     * Richard Crossman - Lord President of the Council
     * Lord Longford - Lord Privy Seal
     * James Callaghan - Chancellor of the Exchequer
     * George Brown - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
     * Roy Jenkins - Secretary of State for the Home Department
     * Fred Peart - Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
     * Herbert Bowden - Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs
     * Denis Healey - Secretary of State for Defence
     * Anthony Crosland - Secretary of State for Education and Science
     * Anthony Greenwood - Minister of Housing and Local Government
     * Arthur Bottomley - Minister for Overseas Development
     * Ray Gunter - Minister of Labour
     * Richard Marsh - Minister of Power
     * William Ross - Secretary of State for Scotland
     * Tony Benn - Minister of Technology
     * Douglas Jay - President of the Board of Trade
     * Barbara Castle - Minister of Transport
     * Cledwyn Hughes - Secretary of State for Wales

   Changes
     * January 1967 - Lord Shackleton and Patrick Gordon Walker enter the
       cabinet as Ministers without Portfolio.
     * August 1967 - Peter Shore succeeds Michael Stewart as Secretary of
       State for Economic Affairs. Stewart remains First Secretary of
       State. George Thomson succeeds Herbert Bowden as Commonwealth
       Secretary. Anthony Crosland succeeds Douglas Jay as President of
       the Board of Trade. Patrick Gordon Walker succeeds Anthony Crosland
       as Education Secretary. Arthur Bottomley, Minister of Overseas
       Development, leaves the cabinet. His successor in that office is
       not in the cabinet.
     * November 1967 - Roy Jenkins succeeds James Callaghan as Chancellor
       of the Exchequer. Callaghan succeeds Jenkins as Home Secretary
     * January 1968 - Lord Shackleton succeeds Lord Longford as Lord Privy
       Seal.

   After reshuffle, April 1968
     * Harold Wilson - Prime Minister
     * Barbara Castle - First Secretary of State and Secretary of State
       for Employment and Productivity
     * Lord Gardiner - Lord Chancellor
     * Richard Crossman - Lord President of the Council
     * Fred Peart - Lord Privy Seal
     * Roy Jenkins - Chancellor of the Exchequer
     * Peter Shore - Secretary of State for Economic Affairs
     * Michael Stewart - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
     * James Callaghan - Secretary of State for the Home Department
     * Cledwyn Hughes - Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
     * George Thomson - Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs
     * Denis Healey - Secretary of State for Defence
     * Edward Short - Secretary of State for Education and Science
     * Anthony Greenwood - Minister of Housing and Local Government
     * Ray Gunter - Minister of Labour
     * Ray Gunter - Minister of Power
     * William Ross - Secretary of State for Scotland
     * Tony Benn - Minister of Technology
     * Anthony Crosland - President of the Board of Trade
     * Richard Marsh - Minister of Transport
     * George Thomas - Secretary of State for Wales
     * Lord Shackleton - Paymaster General

   Changes
     * July 1968 - Roy Mason succeeds Ray Gunter as Minister of Power.
     * October-November 1968 - Fred Peart succeeds Richard Crossman as
       Lord President. Lord Shackleton succeeds Fred Peart as Lord Privy
       Seal. Judith Hart succeeds Shackleton as Paymaster-General. The
       Foreign and Commonwealth Offices are merged, with Michael Stewart
       as Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. Jack Diamond, the Chief
       Secretary to the Treasury, enters the cabinet. The office of
       Secretary of State for Social Services is created, with Richard
       Crossman as Secretary. George Thomson enters the cabinet as
       Minister without Portfolio.
     * October 1969 - Anthony Greenwood, Minister of Housing and Local
       Government, leaves the cabinet. George Thomson becomes Chancellor
       of the Duchy of Lancaster. Anthony Crosland, becomes the Secretary
       of State for Local Government and Regional Planning. Roy Mason
       succeeds Crosland as President of the Board of Trade. His previous
       position of Minister of Power is abolished. Harold Lever succeeds
       Judith Hart as Paymaster General. Richard Marsh resigns as Minister
       of Transport. His successor is not in the cabinet.

Harold Wilson's second government, March 1974 - April 1976

     * Harold Wilson - Prime Minister
     * Lord Elwyn-Jones - Lord Chancellor
     * Edward Short - Lord President of the Council
     * Lord Shepherd - Lord Privy Seal
     * Denis Healey - Chancellor of the Exchequer
     * James Callaghan - Foreign Secretary
     * Roy Jenkins - Home Secretary
     * Fred Peart - Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
     * Roy Mason - Secretary of State for Defence
     * Reginald Prentice - Secretary of State for Education and Science
     * Michael Foot - Secretary of State for Employment
     * Eric Varley - Secretary of State for Energy
     * Anthony Crosland - Secretary of State for the Environment
     * Barbara Castle - Secretary of State for Health and Social Security
     * Tony Benn - Secretary of State for Industry
     * Harold Lever - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
     * Merlyn Rees - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
     * William Ross - Secretary of State for Scotland
     * Shirley Williams - Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer
       Protection
     * Peter Shore - Secretary of State for Trade
     * John Morris - Secretary of State for Wales
     * Robert Mellish - Chief Whip

Changes

     * October 1974 - John Silkin although working to the Secretary of
       State for Environment enters the cabinet as Minister of Planning
       and Local Government.
     * June 1975 - Fred Mulley succeeds Reginald Prentice as Secretary for
       Education and Science. Prentice becomes Secretary for Overseas
       Development. Tony Benn succeeds Eric Varley as Secretary for
       Energy. Varley succeeds Benn as Secretary for Industry.

Titles from birth to death

     * Harold Wilson, Esq ( 11 March 1916– 1 January 1945)
     * Harold Wilson, Esq, OBE ( 1 January 1945– 26 July 1945)
     * Harold Wilson, Esq, OBE, MP ( 26 July 1945– 29 September 1947)
     * The Right Honourable Harold Wilson, OBE, MP ( 29 September 1947– 6
       December 1969)
     * The Right Honourable Harold Wilson, OBE, FRS, MP ( 6 December 1969–
       23 April 1976)
     * The Right Honourable Sir Harold Wilson, KG, OBE, FRS, MP ( 23 April
       1976– 9 June 1983)
     * The Right Honourable Sir Harold Wilson, KG, OBE, FRS ( 9 June– 16
       September 1983)
     * The Right Honourable The Lord Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, PC, OBE, FRS
       ( 16 September 1983– 24 May 1995)

Wilson on television

     * Shortly after resigning as Prime Minister Wilson was signed by
       David Frost to host a series of interview/chat show programmes. The
       pilot episode proved to be a flop as Wilson appeared uncomfortable
       with the informality of the format.
     * Wilson also hosted two editions of the BBC chat show ' Friday
       Night, Saturday Morning'. He famously floundered in the role, and
       in 2000, Channel 4 chose it as one of the 100 Moments of TV Hell.
     * In 1978, Harold Wilson appeared on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas
       Special. Eric Morecambe's habit of appearing not to recognise the
       guest stars was repaid by Wilson, who referred to him throughout as
       'Mor-e-cam-by'.
     * Francis Wheen scripted the BBC 4 2006 drama The Lavender List, a
       fictional account of the Wilson Government of 1974–76. Kenneth
       Cranham played Wilson, Gina McKee Marcia Williams and Celia Imrie
       has a supporting role as Wilson's wife. The play concentrated on
       Wilson and Williams' relationship and her conflict with the Downing
       Street Press Secretary Joe Haines.
     * Also in 2006, The Plot Against Harold Wilson aired on BBC 2 at
       2100GMT on Thursday 16 March. The drama/documentary detailed
       previously unseen evidence that rogue elements of MI5 and the
       British military plotted to take down the Labour Government,
       believing Wilson to be a Soviet spy. Harold Wilson was portrayed by
       James Bolam.

Trivia

     * A popular urban myth at Oxford University states that Wilson's
       grade in his final examination was the highest ever recorded up to
       that date.
     * Wilson was a supporter of Huddersfield Town Football Club
     * Wilson was an Honorary Fellow of Columbia Pacific University . This
       was at a time when CPU was led by a Harvard-trained psychiatrist
       and two former presidents of regionally accredited schools. The
       former British Prime Minister also delivered a speech at a CPU
       graduation ceremony .
     * Wilson was voted Pipe Smoker of the Year in 1965 and Pipeman of the
       Decade in 1976 by the British Pipesmokers' Council.
     * Both Wilson and Edward Heath are named in the lyrics of the George
       Harrison song " Taxman" the lead track from the Revolver album by
       The Beatles.
     * A viking in the Asterix story Asterix and the Great Crossing is
       named Haraldwilssen, and shares his physical features.

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