Harold wilson

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

Can Cameron learn from Wilson?

Few Tories will enjoy looking back on 1974, but they may find it useful to study the second Wilson government and its successor, the Callaghan government, when it comes to the question of Europe.  Back then, we had a government coming to power in the midst of a severe economic climate, and which sought to change the pro-European course that its predecessor had set, including by re-negotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU and by appealing to fraternal parties in France and Britain. However, it ultimately ran into blades of domestic discontent and international indifference. The question is: could this end up being the story of a Conservative government from the

Saturday

David Blackburn

MI6, insider dealing and robbery: it’s another Harold Wilson conspiracy theory

The timing of Harold Wilson’s resignation on March 16 1976 is an enduring mystery and conspiracy theories abound. Had the onset of Alzheimer’s unnerved him? Was he about to be denounced as a Soviet spy? There’s even a preposterous suggestion that Lord Mountbatten gave up his regular lunches with Barbara Cartland to plan a military coup against Wilson. The eminent lawyer, Sir Desmond de Silva, adds a further theory in today’s Times: stolen documents proving that Wilson was involved in insider trading were for sale to continental magazines, and that might have forced Wilson out. Sir Desmond, who later defended one of the alleged thieves, said: “I had known nothing about this burglary. Apparently it

Wednesday

Martin Bright

The Inevitability of Gradualness

I have been reading Marcia Williams’s 1972 memoir of her time with Harold Wilson, Inside Number 10 (no don’t ask why) and come to the chapter with the wonderful title The Inevitability of Gradualness. Here, Wilson’s former personal and private secretary weighs up the successes and failures of the 1960s Wilson governments. On the negative side, failure to reform the civil service, on the plus side the Open University: that sort of thing. At one point Williams quotes New Statesman and Observer contributor Francis Hope writing in the New York Times about the Wilson years: “The achievements of the Labour Government were mostly minor acts of decency.” I discover that