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 won more elections than any other 20th century Prime Minister of the United Kingdom — having won four General Elections (in 1964, 1966, February and October 1974) — albeit most with little or no majority. He is also regarded by many as one of the more intellectual politicians of the era.
The Rt Hon. Harold Wilson | |
|---|---|
| File:Haroldwilson.jpg | |
| Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |
| In office 16 October 1964 – 19 June 1970 4 March 1974 – 5 April 1976 | |
| Preceded by | Sir Alec Douglas-Home Edward Heath |
| Succeeded by | Edward Heath James Callaghan |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 11 March 1916 Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 24 May 1995 London |
| Political party | Labour |
Birth and early life
Wilson was born in Huddersfield, England in 1916, an almost exact contemporary of his great rival, Edward Heath. He came from a political family, his father Herbert having been active in the Liberal Party and then having joined the Labour Party. 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.
Wilson did well at school and won a scholarship to study 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.
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 for the rest of his life. As President of the Board of Trade, he was the driving force behind the Statistics of Trade Act 1947, which is still the legal authority used to collect most economic statistics in Great Britain. As Prime Minister, he was instrumental in appointing Claus Moser as head of the Central Statistical Office. He was President of the Royal Statistical Society in 1972–73.
In Parliament
As the War drew to an end, he began searching for a seat to fight at the impending general election. Eventually he was selected for Ormskirk, which was 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 trips to the Soviet Union to negotiate supplies. Opponents would later class these trips as suspicious.
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 in order to meet the financial demands imposed on the budget 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 made several useful 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 was still identified with the Left, and launched an opportunistic but unsuccessful challenge to the leader Hugh Gaitskell in 1960 after the Labour Party's 1959 defeat and Gaitskell's unpopular move to ditch Clause Four. He also challenged for the deputy leadership in 1962 but was defeated by George Brown. Because of 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, and defeated Brown after James Callaghan joined the race, splitting the votes on the right of the party. He co-ordinated Labour's response to the Profumo Affair, in which he made some political capital without getting the party involved in the less salubrious aspects. (When asked for a statement on the unfolding scandal, he reportedly said "No comment... in glorious Technicolor!") At the Labour Party conference later in 1963, he made a very significant speech in which he claimed "the Britain that will be forged in the white heat of [the scientific and technical] revolution will have no place for restrictive practices and 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 of government consciously modeled on the early months of President Kennedy's administration, a second election in March 1966 returned Wilson with the much larger majority of 96. He became a familiar figure, recognised for his pipe-smoking, his Gannex raincoat, and his tradition of taking holidays in the Isles of Scilly.
(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 had found no evidence of this, but had told him not to use a walkie-talkie.)
During his first period of office, Wilson's government set up the Open University, which he would come to regard as one of the greatest achievements of his era as Prime Minister.
Overseas, Wilson was troubled by crises in several of Britain's former colonies, especially Rhodesia and South Africa. As a matter of principle, Wilson faced down the separatist white Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith who led a white minority government. Under pressure from Wilson, Smith declared Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence on November 11, 1965. Wilson was applauded by most nations for taking a firm stand on the issue. Smith subsequently attacked Wilson in his memoirs blaming Wilson for delaying tactics during negotiations over Rhodesia's future and alleging duplicity. Wilson also rejected American requests for British military support in the Vietnam War and instead opted for diplomatic public support.
His opponents as Prime Minister accused him of deviousness, especially over the matter of devaluation of the pound in November 1967. Wilson had rejected devaluation for many years, yet in his announcement broadcast he seemed to present it as a triumph. In addition to the damage done to its reputation by devaluation, Wilson's Government suffered from a perceived ineffectiveness in its handling of industrial disputes. A six-week strike by the National Union of Seamen, beginning shortly after Wilson's re-election in 1966, did much to reinforce this image problem.
Wilson exhibited his populist touch in 1965 when he decided to have The Beatles honoured with the award the MBE. (Such awards are officially bestowed by The Queen but in actuality are always nominated by the Prime Minister of the day.) The award was enormously popular with young people and contributed to a sense that the Prime Minister was "in touch" with the younger generation. There were some protests against the award 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 decided on the award 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 rather 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, which featured a cartoon caricature that depicted Wilson in bed with his female assistant, Marcia Falkender (later Baroness Falkender). Wild gossip of the era 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.
In 1966, Wilson was created the first Chancellor of the newly created University of Bradford, a position he held until 1985.
By 1969, the Labour Party was suffering serious mid-term 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 swept from power on a tide of anti-Labour feeling. He survived as leader of the party and returned to 10 Downing Street in 1974, after a Conservative government under Edward Heath that could not effectively deal with the challenges facing the government and the country. Wilson was elected in February 1974 in a minority Labour Government, gaining a majority in another election shortly afterwards, in October 1974. Labour's election manifesto included a pledge to renegotiate terms for Britain in the European Economic Community (EEC), and then to hold a referendum on whether Britain should stay in the EEC on the new terms. After the House of Commons voted in favour of retaining the Common Market on the renegotiated terms, a referendum on the retention was held on 5 June 1975. It passed.
Wilson 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 by Wilson 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 (e.g., Essex man, Orpington man). Wilson's most famous attributed quote is 'A week is a long time in politics' around the time of the devaluation of the pound: this is taken to mean that a government doing badly at the beginning of a week may be doing well at the end and vice versa. Other memorable phrases attributed to Wilson include the comment he made to attempt to reassure the British public 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".
In September 1971, Wilson outlined his plans to unite Ireland, in response to the worsening political situation there. He set a target of 1986 for the British withdrawal. However, on his return to power, he did not act on these plans.
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 collapsing the power-sharing Northern Ireland executive, prompting Idi Amin to telegram Wilson, offering to host a peace conference in Uganda.
Harold Wilson was regarded as a "man of the people" and did much to consciously promote this image, contrasting himself with the stereotypical public schoolboy or 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 the overuse of the popular British relish, 'HP Sauce', his support for the football team of his home town, Huddersfield, and his working-class Yorkshire accent. His popularity before 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's successful 1964 campaign was greatly aided by the Profumo Affair, a scandal that mortally wounded the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan and tainted his succesor Sir Alec Douglas-Home, even though Home and his short-lived government were not involved in the scandal. Home himself was an aristocrat who had given up his title as Lord Home in order to sit in the House of Commons. On one occasion Home responded to Wilson's comment that he was the fourteenth Earl of Home with the riposte, "I suppose Mr. Wilson is the fourteenth Mr. Wilson".
Despite his successes and sometime 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, and that his 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 skilful management that allowed an otherwise fractious party to stay politically united and govern. In either case this co-existence did not survive his leadership, and the factionalism that followed contributed greatly to the collapse of the Labour Party during the 1980s. For many voters, Thatcherism emerged politically as the only alternative [see TINA] to the excesses of trade-union power. Meanwhile, the complete reinvention of the Labour Party would take the better part of two decades, at the hands of Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair.
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 that he did not intend to serve more than eight or nine years as Prime Minister. However, by 1976 he was probably 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.
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 celebritites, along with his political supporters, and 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 a 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 the evening of 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, in Kirklees, West Yorkshire.
Death
Not long after Wilson's retirement, his mental deterioration from Alzheimer's disease began to be apparent. He rarely appeared in public after 1986 and died of colon cancer in 1995, at the age of 79. He is buried on St Mary's, Isles of Scilly. His epitaph is 'Tempus Imperator Rerum'.
MI5 plot?
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 has been made that an internal investigation failed to find any evidence to support the allegations. 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 former Army Press officer in Northern Ireland, Colin Wallace who also alleged a plot to destabilise Wilson.
A BBC programme The Plot Against Harold Wilson broadcast in 2006 gives strong suggestions that the country came closer to military government than previously believed. In a series of secret tapes recorded just after his shock 1976 resignation, Harold Wilson explained that for 8 months of his premiership he did not feel in full control and didn't "feel he knew what was going on, fully, in security". He alleged that ex-military leaders had built up private armies in anticipation of "wholesale domestic liquidation" and Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Duke of Edinburgh's uncle and mentor, would be installed as interim Prime Minister. Two plots, in the late 1960s and mid 1970s, were alleged by Wilson.
In the documentary many of Wilson's allegations were confirmed in interviews with ex-intelligence officers and other plotters, who revealed that on two occasions during Wilson's terms in office, they had discussed plans for a takeover by the armed forces. Elements within MI5 had also, it was revealed, spread "black propaganda" that Wilson and Williams were Soviet agents, and that Wilson was an IRA sympathiser. The propaganda effort was designed primarily to ensure that the Conservatives would win the 1974 election.
Richard Hough, in his 1980 biography of Mountbatten, draws on conversations with Hugh Cudlipp (confirmed separately by the recollections of Solly Zuckerman and Mountbatten’s valet, William Evans) to reveal that Mountbatten was indeed approached in relation to a planned coup in the 1960s. Cudlipp arranged for Mountbatten to meet with Cecil King on 8 May 1968 to discuss the political situation in the country. King, who had been close to Hugh Gaitskell, had already failed in an attempt to replace Wilson with James Callaghan during Wilson’s first government. With devaluation and an economic downturn in the mid-sixties, King became convinced that Wilson's government was going to lead to anarchy and civil war and was able to assemble a network of businessmen, politicians and military leaders who discussed suspending parliamentary democracy and removing the incumbent executive; he thought Mountbatten, as both a member of the Royal family and a former Chief of the Defence Staff, would be able to command public support as leader of a non-democratic government. Mountbatten insisted that another friend of his, Solly Zuckerman, should be present at the meeting. (Zuckerman says that he was urged to attend by Mountbatten’s son-in-law, Lord Brabourne, who was worried King would lead Mountbatten astray.) After stating his belief that the country was headed toward civil collapse, King asked Mountbatten if he would be willing to head an emergency government. Zuckerman stated that the idea was treachery and Mountbatten should have nothing to do with it. Mountbatten duly rebuffed King; however, he does not appear to have reported the approach, or his rejection of it, to Downing Street. An upswing in the economy ended King’s plans for a coup.
Other conspiracy theories
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: [1]
Hubbard's unsubstantiated conspiracy theories failed to convince the British public of Wilson's supposed involvement in the mysterious "Tenyaka memorial" conspiracy, despite lurid denunciations published by the Church of Scientology. Wilson's Minister of Health, Kenneth Robinson, subsequently succeeded in winning a libel lawsuit 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
- Gerald Gardiner, Baron 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
- 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 to be a 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 [2].
- Some years ago, Sir Harold was driving through Oxford when he nearly knocked down a Mr. Darren O'Keefe, now a Liverpool barrister.
- Wilson was an Honorary Fellow of Columbia Pacific University [3]. 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 [4].
- Wilson was voted Pipe Smoker of the Year in 1965 and Pipeman of the Decade in 1976 by the British Pipesmokers' Council.
Bibliography
- The Labour Government 1964-1970; A Personal Record (1971) published by Penguin
- The Governance of Britain (1976)
- A Prime Minister on Prime Ministers (1977)
- Purpose in Politics
- The Revelevence of British Socialism
- Purpose in Power
See also
