In March 1976, Wilson suddenly resigned as prime minister. He remained in the House of Commons until retiring in 1983 when he was elevated to theHouse of Lords as Lord Wilson of Rievaulx. While seen by admirers as leading the Labour Party through difficult political issues with considerable skill, Wilson's reputation was low when he left office and is still disputed in historiography. Some scholars praise his unprecedented electoral success for a Labour prime minister and holistic approach to governance,[3] while others criticise his political style and handling of economic issues.[4] Several key issues which he faced while prime minister included the role of public ownership, whether Britain should seek the membership of the European Communities, and British involvement in theVietnam War.[5] His stated ambitions of substantially improving Britain's long-term economic performance, applying technology more democratically, and reducing inequality were to some extent unfulfilled.[6]
James Harold Wilson was born at Warneford Road,Cowlersley, in the western suburbs of the mill town ofHuddersfield, in theWest Riding of Yorkshire, England, on 11 March 1916. He came from a political family: his father James Herbert Wilson was a works chemist who had been active in theLiberal Party, serving asWinston Churchill's deputy election agent in a 1908 by-election, but later joined theLabour Party. His mother Ethel (née Seddon) was a schoolteacher before her marriage; in 1901 her brotherHarold Seddon settled inWestern Australia and became the 8thPresident of the Western Australian Legislative Council in 1946. When Wilson was eight, he visited London and a much-reproduced photograph was taken of him standing on the doorstep of10 Downing Street. At the age of ten, he went with his family to Australia, where he became fascinated with the pomp and glamour of politics. On the way home, he told his mother, "I am going to be prime minister."[7]
Wilson did well at school and, although he missed getting a scholarship, he obtained anexhibition; this, when topped up by a county grant, enabled him to study atJesus College, Oxford, from 1934. At Oxford, Wilson was moderately active in politics as a member of the Liberal Party but was strongly influenced byG. D. H. Cole. His politics tutor,R. B. McCallum, considered Wilson to be the best student he ever had.[9] He graduated in PPE (philosophy, politics and economics) with "an outstanding first class Bachelor of Arts degree, with alphas on every paper" in the final examinations, and a series of major academic awards.[10] BiographerRoy Jenkins wrote:
Academically his results put him among prime ministers in the category ofPeel,Gladstone,Asquith, and no one else. But...he lacked originality. What he was superb at was the quick assimilation of knowledge, combined with an ability to keep it ordered in his mind and to present it lucidly in a form welcome to his examiners.[11]
He continued in academia, becoming a research assistant toWilliam Beveridge in the late-1930s, he also found work lecturing part-time atUniversity College from 1938.[12]
On the outbreak of theSecond World War, Wilson volunteered for military service, but was classed as a specialist and moved into the civil service instead. For much of this time, he was a research assistant toWilliam Beveridge, the Master of University College, working on the issues of unemployment and the trade cycle. Wilson later became a statistician and economist for the coal industry. He was Director of Economics and Statistics at theMinistry of Fuel and Power in 1943–44 and was made anOBE for his services.[13]
As the war drew to an end, he searched for a seat to contest at the impending general election. He was selected for the constituency ofOrmskirk, then held byStephen King-Hall. Wilson agreed to be adopted as the candidate immediately rather than delay until the election was called, and was therefore compelled to resign from his position in the Civil Service. He served asPraelector in Economics at University College between his resignation and his election to the House of Commons. He also used this time to writeA New Deal for Coal, which used his wartime experience to argue for the nationalisation of the coal mines on the grounds of the improved efficiency he predicted would ensue.
The boundaries of his Ormskirk constituency were significantly altered before thegeneral election of 1950. He stood instead for the new seat ofHuyton near Liverpool, and was narrowly elected; he served there for 33 years until 1983.[15]
Wilson was appointedPresident of the Board of Trade on 29 September 1947, becoming, at the age of 31, the youngest member of a British Cabinet in the 20th century. Initially Wilson favoured a more interventionist policy, seeking requirements for government officials to be seated on privateboards of directors, furtherprice controls, andnationalisations ofprivate industries which opposed government policy. However, he abandoned these plans after his colleagues disagreed.[16] He made it a priority to reducewartime rationing, which he referred to as a "bonfire of controls".[2] Wilson decided that the massive number of wartime controls was slowing the conversion to peacetime prosperity and he was committed to removing them as fast as possible.[17] He ended rationing of potatoes, bread and jam, as well as shoes and some other clothing controls.
In November 1948 Wilson's Board of Trade removed the need for over 200,000 licences and permits. By March 1949 he promised to remove the need for another 900,000, although meat remained in short supply and was still rationed, as was petrol.[18] Henry Irvine argues that Wilson's success with the bonfire of controls established his reputation as a modernizing specialist, with both the general public and the political elite. Irving also argues that the selection timing and especially the publicity Wilson devoted to the bonfire represented the emerging skills of a brilliant young politician. While each major bonfire was justified in terms of technical economic advantages, it was selected and publicised widely to reach the largest possible audience so that everybody could understand that their bread and jam became free again.[19]
In mid-1949, with Chancellor of the ExchequerStafford Cripps having gone to Switzerland in an attempt to recover his health, Wilson was one of a group of three young ministers, all of them former economics dons and wartime civil servants, convened to advise Prime Minister Attlee on financial matters. The others wereDouglas Jay (Economic Secretary to the Treasury) andHugh Gaitskell (Minister of Fuel and Power), both of whom soon grew to distrust him. Jay wrote of Wilson's role in the debates over whether or not to devalue sterling that "he changed sides three times within eight days and finished up facing both ways". Wilson was given the task during his Swiss holiday of taking a letter to Cripps informing him of the decision to devalue, to which Cripps had been opposed.[20] Wilson had tarnished his reputation in both political and official circles.[2] Although a successful minister, he was regarded as self-important. He was not seriously considered for the job of Chancellor when Cripps stepped down in October 1950—it was given to Gaitskell—possibly in part because of his cautious role during devaluation.[21][22]
Wilson was becoming known in the Labour Party as a left-winger, and joinedAneurin Bevan andJohn Freeman in resigning from the government in April 1951 in protest at the introduction ofNational Health Service (NHS) medical charges to meet the financial demands imposed by theKorean War. At this time, Wilson was not yet regarded as a heavyweight politician:Hugh Dalton referred to him scornfully as "Nye [Bevan]'s dog".[23]
After Labour lost the1951 election, he became the Chairman of Keep Left, Bevan's political group. At the bitter Morecambe Conference in late 1952, Wilson was one of theBevanites elected as constituency representatives to Labour'sNational Executive Committee (NEC), whilst senior right-wingers such as Dalton andHerbert Morrison were voted off.[24]
Wilson had never made much secret that his support of the left-wing Aneurin Bevan was opportunistic. In early 1954, Bevan resigned from theShadow Cabinet (elected by Labour MPs when the party was in opposition) over Labour's support for the setting-up of theSoutheast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Wilson, who had been runner-up in the elections, stepped up to fill the vacant place. He was supported in this byRichard Crossman, but his actions angered Bevan and the other Bevanites.[25]
Wilson's course in intra-party matters in the 1950s and early 1960s left him neither fully accepted nor trusted by the left or the right in the Labour Party. Despite his earlier association with Bevan, in1955 he backedHugh Gaitskell, the right-wing candidate in internal Labour Party terms, against Bevan for theparty leadership election.[26] Gaitskell appointed himShadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1955, and he proved to be very effective.[27] One of his procedural moves caused a substantial delay to the progress of the Government'sFinance 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 ridiculeSwiss bankers for selling Britain short and pushing thepound sterling down by speculation.[28] He conducted an inquiry into the Labour Party's organisation following its defeat in the1955 general election; its report compared Labour's organisation to an antiquated "penny farthing" bicycle, and made various recommendations for improvements.[29] Unusually, Wilson combined the job of Chairman of the House of Commons'Public Accounts Committee with that of Shadow Chancellor from 1959, holding that position until 1963.[citation needed]
Gaitskell's leadership was weakened following the Labour Party's1959 defeat, his controversial attempt to ditch Labour's commitment to nationalisation by scrappingClause IV, and his defeat at the 1960 Party Conference over a motion supporting unilateralnuclear disarmament. Bevan had died in July 1960, so Wilson established himself as a leader of the Labour left by launching an opportunistic but unsuccessfulchallenge to Gaitskell's leadership in November 1960. Wilson would later be moved to the position ofShadow Foreign Secretary in 1961, before he challenged for the deputy leadership in 1962 but was defeated byGeorge Brown.[citation needed]
Gaitskell died in January 1963, just as the Labour Party had begun to unite and appeared to have a very good chance of winning the next election, with theMacmillan Government running into trouble. Timothy Heppell has explored how Wilson won theLabour Party leadership election. Wilson had alienated the right wing of the party by his angry attempts to defeat Gaitskell in1960 for the leadership, and George Brown in1962 for the deputy leadership. These misadventures gave Wilson a reputation for disloyalty and divisiveness. Heppell identifies three factors whereby Wilson overcame these disadvantages. Firstly, he had united the party's left wing behind him and they showed no willingness to compromise. Secondly, the right wing, although more numerous, was deeply split between Brown andJames Callaghan. Wilson took the lead on the first ballot and gained momentum on the second. Finally, Brown proved a poor campaigner, emphasizing divisive factors rather than his own credentials, allowing Wilson to emerge, surprisingly, as the unity candidate, thus becoming theLeader of the Labour Party and theLeader of the Opposition.[30]
At the party's 1963 annual conference, Wilson made his best-remembered speech, on the implications of scientific and technological change. 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.[31]
Labour's1964 election campaign was aided by theProfumo affair, a ministerial sex scandal that had mortally woundedHarold Macmillan and hurt the Conservatives. Wilson made capital without getting involved in the less salubrious aspects. (Asked for a statement on the scandal, he reportedly said "No comment ... in gloriousTechnicolor!").[32] SirAlec Douglas-Home was anaristocrat who had given up hispeerage to sit in theHouse of Commons and become prime minister upon Macmillan's resignation. To Wilson's comment that he was out of touch with ordinary people since he was the 14thEarl of Home, Home retorted, "I suppose Mr. Wilson is the fourteenth Mr. Wilson".[33]
Labour won the1964 general election with a narrow majority of four seats, and Wilson becameprime minister, at 48 the youngest person to hold that office sinceLord Rosebery 70 years earlier. During 1965, by-election losses reduced the government's majority to a single seat; but inMarch 1966 Wilson took the gamble of calling another general election. The gamble paid off, because this time Labour achieved a 96-seat majority[34] over the Conservatives, who the previous year had madeEdward Heath their leader.
The 1964–1970 Labour government carried out a broad range of reforms during its time in office, in such areas as social security,[35] civil liberties,[36] housing,[37] health,[38] education,[39] and worker's rights.[40]
Wilson's government put faith ineconomic planning as a way to solve Britain's economic problems. The government's strategy involved setting up aDepartment of Economic Affairs (DEA) which would draw up a National Plan which was intended to promote growth and investment. Wilson believed that scientific progress was the key to economic and social advancement, as such he famously referred to the "white heat of technology", in reference to the modernisation of British industry. This was to be achieved through a newMinistry of Technology (shortened to "Mintech") which would coordinate research and development and support the swift adoption of new technology by industry, aided by government-funded infrastructure improvements.[41]
In practice, however, events derailed much of the initial optimism. Upon coming to power, the government was informed that they had inherited an exceptionally large deficit of £800 million on Britain'sbalance of trade. This partly reflected the preceding government's expansive fiscal policy in the run-up to the 1964 election. Immediately the pound came under enormous pressure, and many economists advocateddevaluation of the pound in response, 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". Wilson also believed that a devaluation would disproportionately harm low-income Britons with savings and poorerCommonwealth of Nations countries in thesterling area. The government instead opted to deal with the problem by imposing a temporary surcharge on imports, and a series of deflationary measures designed to reduce demand and therefore the inflow of imports.[42] In the latter half of 1967, an attempt was made to prevent the recession in activity from going too far in the form of a stimulus to consumer durable spending through an easing of credit, which in turn prevented a rise in unemployment.[43]
Following a costly battle, market pressures forced the government to devalue the pound by 14% from $2.80 to $2.40 in November 1967.[41] Wilson was much criticised for a broadcast soon after in which he assured listeners that the "pound in your pocket" had not lost its value.[44] Economic performance did show some improvement after the devaluation, as economists had predicted. The devaluation, with accompanying austerity measures which ensured resources went into exports rather than domestic consumption, successfully restored the trade balance to surplus by 1970. In retrospect Wilson has been widely criticised for not devaluing earlier, however, he believed there were strong arguments against it, including the fear that it would set off a round of competitive devaluations, and concern about the impact price rises following a devaluation would have on people on low incomes.[41]
The government's decision over its first three years to defend sterling's parity with traditional deflationary measures ran counter to hopes for an expansionist push for growth. The National Plan produced by the DEA in 1965 targeted an annual growth rate of 3.8%, however, under the restrained circumstances the actual average rate of growth between 1964 and 1970 was a far more modest 2.2%. The DEA itself was wound up in 1969. The government's other main initiative Mintech did have some success at switching research and development spending from military to civilian purposes, and of achieving increases in industrial productivity, although persuading industry to adopt new technology proved more difficult than had been hoped.[41]
The continued relevance of industrialnationalisation (a centrepiece of the post-War Labour government's programme) had been a key point of contention in Labour's internal struggles of the 1950s and early 1960s. Wilson's predecessor as leader,Hugh Gaitskell, had tried in 1960 to tackle the controversy head-on, with a proposal to expungeClause Four (the public ownership clause) from the party's constitution, but had been forced to climb down. Wilson took a characteristically more subtle approach: No significant expansion of public ownership took place under Wilson's government, however, he placated the party's left-wing by renationalising the steel industry under theIron and Steel Act 1967 (which had been denationalised by the Conservatives in the 1950s) creating theBritish Steel Corporation.[41]
Wilson's government presided over a rate ofunemployment which was low by historic (and later) standards but did rise during his period in office. Between 1964 and 1966 the average rate of unemployment was 1.6%, while between 1966 and 1970 the average stood at 2.5%.[41] He had entered power at a time when unemployment stood at around 400,000. It still stood at 371,000 by early 1966 after a steady fall during 1965, but by March 1967 it stood at 631,000. It fell again towards the end of the decade, standing at 582,000 by the time of the general election in June 1970.[45]
Higher education held special significance for a Labourite of Wilson's generation, given its role in both opening up opportunities for ambitious youth from working-class backgrounds and enabling Britain to seize the potential benefits of scientific advances. Under the first Wilson government, for the first time in British history, more money was allocated to education than to defence.[48] Wilson continued the rapid creation of new universities, in line with the recommendations of theRobbins Report, abipartisan policy already in train when Labour took power.
Wilson's record onsecondary education was motivated by growing pressure for the abolition of the selective principle underlying the "eleven-plus", and replacement withcomprehensive schools which would serve the full range of children (see the article 'grammar schools debate'). Comprehensive education became Labour Party policy. From 1966 to 1970, the proportion of children in comprehensive schools increased from about 10% to over 30%.[49]
In 1968, Wilson's first government reluctantly decided it could not fulfil its long-held promise to raise the school leaving age to 16, because budget cuts left it unable to fulfil the investment required in infrastructure, such as tens of thousands of new classrooms and teachers.[41]
Overall, public expenditure on education rose as a proportion of GNP from 4.8% in 1964 to 5.9% in 1968, and the number of teachers in training increased by more than a third between 1964 and 1967.[46] The percentage of students staying on at school after the age of sixteen increased similarly, and the student population increased by over 10% each year. Pupil-teacher ratios were also steadily reduced. As a result of the first Wilson government's educational policies, opportunities for the working-class were improved; overall access to education in 1970 was broader than in 1964.[50]
Housing was a major policy area under the first Wilson government. During Wilson's time in office from 1964 to 1970, more new houses were built than in the last six years of the previous Conservative government. The proportion ofcouncil housing rose from 42% to 50% of the total,[51] while the number of council homes built increased steadily, from 119,000 in 1964 to 133,000 in 1965 and 142,000 in 1966. Allowing for demolitions, 1.3 million new homes were built between 1965 and 1970,[52] although concerns were raised about the quality of much of the new housing, which was often cheaply built high-rise stock (the latter came in for particular criticism following theRonan Point collapse in 1968).[41]
To encourage homeownership, the government introduced the Option Mortgage Scheme (1968), which made low-income housebuyers eligible for subsidies (equivalent to tax relief on mortgage interest payments).[53] This scheme had the effect of reducing housing costs for buyers on low incomes[54] and enabling more people to become owner-occupiers.[55] In addition, house owners were exempted from capital gains tax. Together with the Option Mortgage Scheme, this measure stimulated the private housing market.[56] Wilson in a 1967 speech said: "..the grime and muddle and decay of our Victorian heritage is being replaced. The new city centres with their university precincts, their light, clean and well-spaced civic buildings, will not merely brighten the physical environment of our people, they will change the very quality of urban life in Britain."[57]
Significant emphasis was also placed on town planning, with new conservation areas introduced and a new generation of new towns built, notablyMilton Keynes. The New Towns Acts of 1965 and 1968 together gave the government the authority (through its ministries) to designate any area of land as a site for anew town.[58]
Prescription charges for medicines were abolished immediately following Labour's 1964 election victory, while pensions were raised to a record 21% of average male industrial wages. Before the 1966 election, thewidow's pension was tripled. Due to austerity measures following an economic crisis, prescription charges were re-introduced in 1968 as an alternative to cutting the hospital building programme, although those sections of the population who were most in need (including supplementary benefit claimants, the long-term sick, children, and pensioners) were exempted from charges.[59]
In the five years from 1964 up until the last increases made by the First Wilson Government, pensions went up by 23% in real terms, supplementary benefits by 26% in real terms, and sickness and unemployment benefits by 153% in real terms (largely as a result of the introduction of earnings-related benefits in 1967).[60]
Wilson's first premiership was marked by the emerging conflict inNorthern Ireland: like all British governments since thepartition of Ireland in 1921, Harold Wilson's Labour government preferred not to intervene in the affairs of Northern Ireland. However in August 1969,escalating sectarian violence between the province'sProtestant andCatholic communities, gave theGovernment of Northern Ireland little choice but to ask the British government to intervene directly and send in troops, and it was the Home Secretary,James Callaghan, who took the decision todeploy British Army troops in the province. In return Wilson and Callaghan demanded that various reforms be implemented in the province, such as the phasing out of the Protestant paramilitaryB-Specials, and their replacement by theUlster Defence Regiment, which was open to Catholic recruits, and various reforms to reduce discrimination against Catholics, such as reforms to the voting franchise, and a reform of local government boundaries and housing allocations. Although the troops were initially welcomed by Northern Ireland's Catholics, by early 1970 this had soured, and theProvisional IRA emerged, and embarked on what became a decades long violent campaign during what became known asthe Troubles.[61]
A newMinistry of Overseas Development was established, with its greatest success at the time being the introduction of interest-free loans for the poorest countries.[52] The Minister of Overseas Development,Barbara Castle, set a standard in interest relief on loans to developing nations which resulted in changes to the loan policies of many donor countries, "a significant shift in the conduct of rich white nations to poor brown ones." Loans were introduced todeveloping countries on terms that were more favourable to them than those given by governments of all other developed countries at that time. In addition, Castle was instrumental in setting up an Institute of Development Studies at theUniversity of Sussex to devise ways of tackling globalsocio-economic inequalities. Overseas aid suffered from the austerity measures introduced by the first Wilson government in its last few years in office, with British aid as a percentage of GNP falling from 0.53% in 1964 to 0.39% in 1969.[62]
Wilson's government made a variety of changes to thetax system. Largely under the influence of the Hungarian-born economistsNicholas Kaldor andThomas Balogh, an idiosyncraticSelective Employment Tax (SET) was introduced that was designed to tax employment in the service sectors while subsidising employment in manufacturing. (The rationale proposed by its economist authors derived largely from claims about potential economies of scale and technological progress, but Wilson in his memoirs stressed the tax's revenue-raising potential.) The SET did not long survive the return of a Conservative government. Of longer-term significance,capital gains tax (CGT) was introduced across the UK on 6 April 1965.[63]
Various changes were also made to the tax system which benefited workers on low and middle incomes. Married couples with low incomes benefited from the increases in the single personal allowance and marriage allowance. In 1965, the regressive allowance for national insurance contributions was abolished and the single personal allowance, marriage allowance and wife's earned income relief were increased. These allowances were further increased in the tax years 1969–70 and 1970–71. Increases in the age exemption and dependant relative's income limits benefited the low-income elderly.[43] In 1967, new tax concessions were introduced for widows.[64]
Increases were made in some of the minor allowances in the 1969 Finance Act, notably the additional personal allowance, the age exemption and age relief and the dependent relative limit. Apart from the age relief, further adjustments in these concessions were implemented in 1970.[43]
1968 saw the introduction of aggregation of the investment income of unmarried minors with the income of their parents. According to Michael Meacher, this change put an end to a previous inequity whereby two families, in otherwise identical circumstances, paid differing amounts of tax "simply because in one case the child possessed property transferred to it by a grandparent, while in the other case the grandparent's identical property was inherited by the parent."[43]
In the 1969 budget, income tax was abolished for about 1 million of the lowest-paid and reduced for a further 600,000 people,[65] while in the government's last budget (introduced in 1970), two million small taxpayers were exempted from paying any income tax altogether.[66]
Wilson made periodic attempts to mitigate inflation, largely throughwage-price controls—better known in Britain as "prices andincomes policy".[41] (As with indicative planning, such controls—though now generally out of favour—were widely adopted at that time by governments of different ideological complexions, including theNixon administration in the United States.) Partly as a result of this reliance, 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 most damaging of the numerous strikes during Wilson's periods in office was a six-week stoppage by theNational Union of Seamen, beginning shortly after Wilson'sre-election in 1966, and conducted, he claimed, by "politically motivated men".
With public frustration over strikes mounting, Wilson's government in 1969 proposed a series of changes to the legal basis for industrial relations (labour law), which were outlined in a White Paper "In Place of Strife" put forward by the Employment SecretaryBarbara Castle. Following a confrontation with theTrades Union Congress, which strongly opposed the proposals, and internal dissent fromHome SecretaryJames Callaghan, the government substantially backed-down from its intentions. The Heath government (1970–1974) introduced theIndustrial Relations Act 1971 with many of the same ideas, but this was largely repealed by the post-1974 Labour government. Some elements of these changes were subsequently to be enacted (in modified form) during the premiership ofMargaret Thatcher.[41]
Wilson believed in a strong "Special Relationship" with the United States and wanted to highlight his dealings with the White House to strengthen his prestige as a statesman. PresidentLyndon B. Johnson disliked Wilson and ignored any "special" relationship. TheVietnam War was a sore point.[67] Johnson needed and asked for help to maintain American prestige. Wilson offered lukewarm verbal support and no military aid. Wilson's policy angered the left-wing of his Labour Party, whoopposed the Vietnam War.[68] Wilson and Johnson also differed sharply on British economic weakness and its declining status as a world power. Historian Jonathan Colman concludes it made for the most unsatisfactory "special" relationship in the 20th century.[69] The only point of total agreement was that both Johnson and Wilson emphatically supported Israel in the 1967Six-Day War.[70]
Wilson with West German ChancellorLudwig Erhard in 1965
Among the more challenging political dilemmas Wilson faced was the issue ofBritish membership of the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the presentEuropean Union. An entry attempt was vetoed in 1963 by French PresidentCharles de Gaulle. The Labour Party in Opposition had been divided on the issue, with Hugh Gaitskell having come out in 1962 in opposition to Britain joining theEuropean Economic Community.[71] After initial hesitation, Wilson's Government in May 1967 lodged the UK's second application to join the European Economic Community. It was vetoed by de Gaulle in November 1967.[72] After De Gaulle lost power, Conservative prime ministerEdward Heath negotiatedBritain's admission to the EEC in 1973.
Wilson in opposition showed political ingenuity in devising a position that both sides of the party could agree on, opposing the terms negotiated by Heath but not membership in principle. Labour's 1974 manifesto included a pledge to renegotiate terms for Britain's membership and thenhold a referendum on whether to stay in the EEC on the new terms. This was a constitutional procedure without precedent in British history.
Following Wilson's return to power, the renegotiations with Britain's fellow EC members were carried out by Wilson himself in tandem with Foreign SecretaryJames Callaghan, and they toured the capital cities of Europe meeting their European counterparts. The discussions focused primarily on Britain's netbudgetary contribution to the EEC. As a small agricultural producer heavily dependent on imports, Britain suffered doubly from the dominance of:
During the renegotiations, other EEC members conceded, as a partial offset, the establishment of a significantEuropean Regional Development Fund (ERDF), from which it was agreed that Britain would be a major net beneficiary.[73]
In the subsequent referendum campaign, rather than the normal British tradition of "collective responsibility", under which the government takes a policy position which all cabinet members are required to support publicly, members of the Government were free to present their views on either side of the question. The electoratevoted on 5 June 1975 to continue membership, by a substantial majority.[74]
His government offered some rhetorical support for the US position (most prominently in the defence offered by the Foreign SecretaryMichael Stewart in a much-publicised "teach-in" or debate on Vietnam). On at least one occasion the British government made an unsuccessful effort to mediate in the conflict, with Wilson discussing peace proposals withAlexei Kosygin, theChairman of theUSSR Council of Ministers. On 28 June 1966 Wilson 'dissociated' his Government fromAmerican bombing of the cities ofHanoi andHaiphong. In his memoirs, Wilson writes of "selling LBJ abum steer", a reference to Johnson's Texas roots, which conjured up images of cattle and cowboys in British minds.[76]
Part of the price paid by Wilson after talks with President Johnson in June 1967 for US assistance with the UK economy was his agreement to maintain a military presenceEast of Suez.[77] In July 1967Defence SecretaryDenis Healey announced that Britain would abandon her mainland basesEast of Suez by 1977, althoughairmobile forces would be retained which could if necessary be deployed in the region. Shortly afterwards, in January 1968, Wilson announced that the proposed timetable for this withdrawal was to be accelerated and that British forces were to be withdrawn from Singapore, Malaysia, and thePersian Gulf by the end of 1971.[78]
Wilson was known for his strongly pro-Israel views.[79] He was a particular friend of Israeli PremierGolda Meir, though her tenure largely coincided with Wilson's 1970–1974 hiatus. Another associate was West GermanChancellorWilly Brandt; all three were members of theSocialist International.[80]
The British "retreat from Empire" had made headway by 1964 and was to continue during Wilson's administration.Southern Rhodesia was not granted independence, principally because Wilson refused to grant independence to the white minority government headed by Rhodesian prime ministerIan Smith which was not willing to extend unqualifiedvoting rights to the native African population. Smith's defiant response was aUnilateral Declaration of Independence, on 11 November 1965. Wilson's immediate recourse was to the United Nations, and in 1965, theSecurity Council imposed sanctions, which were to last until official independence in 1979. This involvedBritish warships blockading the port of Beira to try to cause economic collapse in Rhodesia. Wilson was applauded by most nations for taking a firm stand on the issue (and none extended diplomatic recognition to the Smith régime). A number of nations did not join in with sanctions, undermining their efficiency. Certain sections of public opinion started to question their efficacy, and to demand the toppling of the régime by force. Wilson declined to intervene in Rhodesia with military force, believing the British population would not support such action against their "kith and kin". The two leaders met for discussions aboard British warships,Tiger in 1966 andFearless in 1968. 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.[76] The matter was still unresolved at the time of Wilson's resignation in 1976. Wilson had a good relationship withSiaka Stevens of Sierra Leone; the two leaders attempted to work together to find a solution to the question ofBiafra in Nigeria.[81][82] But despite this, the British government was actively sending arms, munitions and other equipment to theNigerian military junta, and consistently denied any wrongdoing by the government ofNigeria: Nigerian writerChinua Achebe wrote that this may have cost him his position.[83][84]
By 1969, the Labour Party was suffering serious electoral reverses, and by the turn of 1970 had lost a total of 16 seats in by-elections since the previous general election.[85]
By 1970, the economy was showing signs of improvement, and by May that year, Labour had overtaken the Conservatives in the opinion polls.[86] Wilson responded to this apparent recovery in his government's popularity by callinga general election, but, to the surprise of most observers, was defeated at the polls by the Conservatives under Heath. Most opinion polls had predicted a Labour win, with a poll six days before the election showing a 12.4% Labour lead. Writing in the aftermath of the election,The Times journalist George Clark wrote that the 1970 contest would be "remembered as the occasion when the people of the United Kingdom hurled the findings of the opinion polls back into the faces of the pollsters and at the voting booths proved them wrong—most of them badly wrong".[87] Heath and the Conservatives had attacked Wilson over the economy. Towards the end of the campaign, bad trade figures for May added weight to Heath's campaign and he claimed that a Labour victory would result in a further devaluation. Wilson considered Heath's claims "irresponsible" and "damaging to the nation".[88] Ultimately, however, the election saw Labour's vote share fall to its lowest since1935.[89] Several prominent Labour figures lost their seats, notablyGeorge Brown who was still Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.[90]
Following the elections and Labour's subsequent defeat, Wilson survived as leader of the Labour Party in opposition. In August 1973, holidaying on theIsles of Scilly, he tried to board a motorboat from a dinghy and stepped into the sea. He was unable to get into the boat and was left in the cold water for more than half an hour, hanging on to the fenders of the motorboat. He was close to death before he was saved by Paul Wolff, the father of novelistIsabel Wolff. When word of the incident became public the following month, Wilson downplayed its severity; it was taken up by the press and resulted in some embarrassment. His press secretary,Joe Haines, tried to deflect some of the comment by blaming Wilson's dog Paddy for the problem.[91]
Early in 1974, Wilson became the victim of apersonation fraud. A Staffordshireproperty developer, Ronald Milhench, forged a letter purporting to be from the former Prime Minister.[92] Milhench was involved in negotiations for a property deal; unable to provide finance, he met a journalist, claiming that Wilson was involved with the deal. Milhench further claimed he wanted to deal "a body blow" to Labour's election chances and that he could sell the letter for £25000. In November 1974, Milhench was convicted of forgery, theft and firearms charges.[92][93]
Economic conditions during the 1970s were becoming more difficult for Britain and many other western economies as a result of theNixon shock and the1973 oil crisis, and the Heath government in its turn was buffeted by economic adversity and industrial unrest (notably including confrontation with the coalminers which led to theThree-Day Week) towards the end of 1973, and on 7 February 1974 (with the crisis still ongoing) Heath called a snap election for 28 February.[94]
Harold Wilson with US PresidentRichard Nixon andHenry Kissinger in 1974Harold Wilson with US PresidentGerald Ford in 1975, during his second term as prime minister
Labour won more seats (though fewer votes) than the Conservative Party in thegeneral election in February 1974, which resulted in ahung parliament. As Heath was unable to persuade theLiberals to form acoalition, Wilson returned to 10 Downing Street on 4 March 1974 as prime minister of a minority Labour Government. He gained a three-seat majority inanother election later that year, on 10 October 1974.
One of the key issues addressed during his second period in office was thereferendum on British membership of the European Community (EC) which took place in June 1975: Labour had pledged in its February 1974 manifesto to renegotiate the terms of British accession to the EC, and then to consult the public in a referendum on whether Britain should stay in on the new terms. Although the government recommended a vote in favour of continued membership, the cabinet was split on the issue, and Ministers were allowed to campaign on different sides of the question. The referendum resulted in a near two-to-one majority in favour of Britain remaining in the EC.[95]
The Second Wilson Government made a major commitment to the expansion of theBritish welfare state, with increased spending on education, health, and housing rents.[96] To pay for it, it imposed controls and raised taxes on the rich. Wilson's new chancellorDenis Healey partially reversed the 1971 reduction in the top rate of tax from 90% to 75%, increasing it to 83% in his first budget, which came into law in April 1974. This applied to incomes over £20,000 (equivalent to £263,269 in 2023),[97] and combined with a 15% surcharge on 'unearned' income (investments and dividends) could add up to a 98% marginal rate of personal income tax. In 1974, as many as 750,000 people were liable to pay the top rate of income tax.[98]
Circular 4/74 (1974) renewed pressure for moves towards comprehensive education (progress of which had stalled under the Heath ministry), while the industrial relations legislation passed underEdward Heath was repealed. TheHealth and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 set up aHealth and Safety Commission and aHealth and Safety Executive; it gave a legal framework for health and safety at work.[49] while theChild Benefits Act 1975 introduced an extra payment for single parents.[99] In June 1975, the government issued the first series of National Savings Retirement Certificates.[100]
Despite its achievements in social policy, Wilson's government came under scrutiny in 1975 for the rise in the unemployment rate, with the total number of Britons out of work passing one million by that April.[102]
Wilson's second government came into office at a troubled time for the British economy, due toa global recession andstagflation, in large part this was due to the1973 oil crisis, and also the preceding government'sinflationary attempt to boost growth.[103] In order to deal with inflation (which peaked at 26% in 1975) the government negotiated a 'social contract' with theTrades Union Congress to implement a voluntaryincomes policy, in which pay rises were held down to limits set by the government. This policy operated with reasonable success for the next few years, and inflation fell to single figures by 1978.[95] By 1976 the recession had ended and economic recovery began,[103] by 1978/79 living standards recovered to the level they had been in 1973/74.[104] The Labour governments of the 1970s did, however, manage to protect the living standards of many people from the worst effects of the recession and high inflation, with pensions increasing by 20% in real terms between 1974 and 1979, while measures such as rent andprice controls and food and transport subsidies mitigated the adverse impact on the living standards of many more people.[105]
The government'sindustrial policy was greatly influenced by the economistStuart Holland and theSecretary of State for IndustryTony Benn. The centrepiece of the policy was theNational Enterprise Board (NEB) which was established in 1975 and was intended to channel public investment into industry, in return for taking a holding of equity in private companies. The NEB was intended to extendpublic ownership of the economy as well as investing in the regeneration of industry, although it had some successes in that aim, in practice one of its main activities became that of propping up failing companies such asBritish Leyland. The government also continued its policy of encouraging regional development by increasing Regional Employment Premiums, which had first been established in 1967.[95][106]
While out of office in late 1971, Wilson had formulated a 16-point, 15-year programme that was designed to pave the way for the unification of Ireland. The proposal was not adopted by the then Heath government.[107]
In May 1974, when back in office as leader of a minority government, Wilson condemned theUnionist-controlledUlster Workers' Council strike as a "sectarian strike". He refused to pressure a reluctantBritish Army to face down theUlster loyalist paramilitaries who were intimidating utility workers. In a televised speech later, 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.
In May 1975, his government set up theNorthern Ireland Constitutional Convention as an attempt to deal with constitutional issues surrounding the status of Northern Ireland. The body, as established in theNorthern Ireland Act 1974, was elected; the Act dissolved theNorthern Ireland Assembly. The Constitutional Convention ultimately failed to achieve cross-community consensus on new constitutional arrangements, before it was permanently dissolved in 1976. TheNorthern Ireland Assembly was only re-established in 1982.
On 11 September 2008,BBC Radio 4'sDocument programme claimed to have unearthed a secret plan—codenamedDoomsday—which proposed to cut all of the United Kingdom's constitutional ties with Northern Ireland and transform the province into an independentdominion.Document went on to claim that the Doomsday plan was devised mainly by Wilson and was kept a closely guarded secret. The plan then allegedly lost momentum, due in part, it was claimed, to warnings made by the Foreign Secretary, James Callaghan, and the Irish Minister for Foreign AffairsGarret FitzGerald who admitted the 12,000-strongIrish Army would be unable to deal with a civil war.[108] Later, Callaghan spoke and wrote despondently about the prospect for a British-derived solution to the Northern Ireland issue, supporting a similar plan to push Northern Ireland towards independent status.[109]
In 1975, Wilson secretly offered Libya's dictatorMuammar Gaddafi £14 million to stop arming theProvisional Irish Republican Army, but Gaddafi demanded a far greater sum of money.[110] This offer did not become publicly known until 2009.[111]
When Wilson entered office for the second time, he had privately admitted that he had lost his enthusiasm for the role, telling a close adviser in 1974 that "I have been around this racetrack so often that I cannot generate any more enthusiasm for jumping any more hurdles."[95] On 16 March 1976, Wilson resigned as prime minister, taking effect on 5 April. He claimed that he had always planned on resigning at the age of 60 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 (laterLord Stone of Hendon), that he did not intend to serve more than eight or nine years as prime minister.
Roy Jenkins has suggested that Wilson may have been motivated partly by the distaste for politics felt by his loyal and long-suffering wife, Mary.[2] His doctor had detected problems which would later be diagnosed ascolon cancer, and Wilson had begun drinking brandy during the day to cope with stress.[5] By 1976 he might already have been aware of the first stages of early-onsetAlzheimer's disease, which was to cause his formerly excellent memory and his powers of concentration to fail dramatically.[112]
Wilson'sResignation Honours included many businessmen and celebrities, along with his political supporters. His choice of appointments caused lasting damage to his reputation, worsened by the suggestion that the first draft of the list had been written by his political secretaryMarcia Williams on lavender notepaper (it became known as the "Lavender List").Roy Jenkins noted that Wilson's retirement "was disfigured by his, at best, eccentric resignation honours list, which gave peerages or knighthoods to some adventurous business gentlemen, several of whom were close neither to him nor to the Labour Party."[2] Some of those whom Wilson honoured includedLord Kagan, the inventor ofGannex (Wilson's preferred raincoat), who was eventually imprisoned for fraud, and SirEric Miller, who later committed suicide while under police investigation for corruption.
The Labour Party held anelection to replace Wilson as leader of the Party, and thus prime minister. Six candidates stood in the first ballot; in order of votes they were:Michael Foot,James Callaghan,Roy Jenkins,Tony Benn,Denis Healey andAnthony Crosland. In the third ballot, on 5 April, Callaghan defeated Foot in a parliamentary vote of 176 to 137, and served as prime minister until May 1979.
As Wilson wished to remain an MP after leaving office, he was not immediately given thepeerage customarily offered to retired prime ministers, but instead was created aKnight Companion of the Garter. He fought one last election in1979 in which he was returned as a backbench MP for Huyton. Following his departure from theHouse of Commons before the1983 general election, after 38 years of service, he was granted alife peerage asBaron Wilson of Rievaulx, ofKirklees in the County of West Yorkshire, afterRievaulx Abbey, in the north of his native Yorkshire; theKirklees refers to his home address of Huddersfield, and is not part of his title.[113][114][115]
He was appointed in 1976 to chair the Committee to Review the Functioning of Financial Institutions (the Wilson Committee) which reported in June 1980.[116]
Shortly after resigning as prime minister, Wilson was signed byDavid 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 showFriday Night, Saturday Morning. He famously floundered in the role, and in 2000,Channel 4 chose one of his appearances as one of the "100 Moments of TV Hell".
A lifelongGilbert and Sullivan fan, in 1975, Wilson joined the Board of Trustees of theD'Oyly Carte Trust at the invitation of SirHugh Wontner, who was then theLord Mayor of London.[117] At Christmas 1978, Wilson appeared on theMorecambe 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 'Morry-camby' (the mispronunciation of Morecambe's name made byEd Sullivan when the pair appeared on his famous American television show). Wilson appeared on the show again in 1980.
Wilson was not especially active in theHouse of Lords, although he did initiate a debate on unemployment in May 1984.[118] His last speech was in a debate onmarine pilotage in 1986, when he commented as an elder brother ofTrinity House.[119] In the same year he played himself as prime minister in anAnglia Television drama,Inside Story.[120]
Wilson suffered from advancing Alzheimer's-related dementia in his retirement years, making it difficult for him to earn an income capitalising on his experience as a former prime minister by writing books and giving speeches. According to his former press secretaryJoe Haines: "He never had much money of his own. Because of his mental condition he couldn't write articles or make speeches, and his income would have been his pension as an ex-prime minister," which Haines said was a "comparatively small sum" as Conservative and Liberal former prime ministers were usually aristocrats who had their own wealth or would benefit from wealthy benefactors and by being appointed to corporate boards, and thus did not need to rely on their parliamentary pensions to support themselves. One of Wilson's successors as Labour leader,Neil Kinnock, toldThe Guardian: "I heard stories that he was trying to make speeches for money but was unsuccessful because he had lost his fluency." Eventually, Wilson attempted to sell his personal papers toMcMaster University in Canada for £212,500 in order to fund costs of his health care. This arrangement was considered unsuitable by the government and instead, it was arranged in 1991 that anonymous donors would provide funds so that theBodleian Library atOxford could buy Wilson's papers in order to keep them in the United Kingdom while also allowing the proceeds to set up atrust fund for Wilson and his wife.[121]
Wilson continued regularly attending the House of Lords until just over a year before his death; the last sitting he attended was on 27 April 1994. He had a picture taken with other Labour Lords on 15 June 1994, just under a year before his death.[122][123] He died ofcolon cancer andAlzheimer's disease on 23 May 1995, aged 79.[a][124]
Many in the House of Commons made tributes. Prime MinisterJohn Major called him a "formidable political opponent" and ended his speech with the following words: "What was Harold Wilson really like? I have formed my judgment. He was a complex man, certainly, a clever man, a sensitive man, a man who could be bruised and hurt and who never wore the armadillo skin of the fictional politician. He was a man of many achievements and, perhaps above all, a very human man who served his country well and honourably and who has earned, by that, a secure place in its history. In the ledger of life, his credit balance is very high. It is a privilege for me, as one, nominally, of his political opponents, to pay him this tribute and I do so unreservedly."[125]
On New Year's Day 1940, in the chapel ofMansfield College, Oxford, he marriedMary Baldwin, whom he remained married to until his death. Mary Wilson became a published poet, and outlived her husband by 23 years. She died on 6 June 2018 at the age of 102. They had two sons,Robin and Giles (named afterGiles Alington); Robin became a professor of mathematics, and Giles became a teacher and later a train driver.[127] In their twenties, his sons were under a kidnap threat from theIRA because of their father's prominence.[128]
In April 2024Joe Haines, who had served as Wilson's press secretary during his time as prime minister, revealed that Wilson had had an affair with Haines' deputy Janet Hewlett-Davies during his final two years in office. Hewlett-Davies died aged 85 in October 2023.[129][130] Speaking on BBC Radio 4'sToday programme, Wilson's former adviserBernard Donoughue said the affair had provided "a little sunshine at sunset" for Wilson, who was becoming "increasingly paranoid about the security services", was dealing with political difficulties, and was possibly in the early stages ofdementia.[131]
Wilson regarded himself as a "man of the people" and did much to promote this image, contrasting himself with the stereotypical aristocratic conservatives and other statesmen who had preceded him, as an example of social mobility. He largely retained hisYorkshire accent. Other features of this persona included his working man'sGannex raincoat, his pipe (the British Pipesmokers' Council voted himPipe Smoker of the Year in 1965 and Pipeman of the Decade in 1976, though in private he preferred cigars), his love of simple cooking and fondness for the popular British relishHP Sauce, and his support for his home town's football team,Huddersfield Town.[132] 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".[133]
Wilson exhibited his populist touch in June 1965 when he hadthe Beatles honoured with the award ofMBE. 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 minimum 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 cemented Wilson's image as a modernistic leader and linked him to the burgeoning pride in the 'New Britain' typified by the Beatles.[134] The Beatles mentioned Wilson rather negatively, naming both him and his opponentEdward Heath inGeorge Harrison's song "Taxman", the opener to 1966'sRevolver—recorded and released after the MBEs.[135]
In 1967 Wilson had a different interaction with a musical ensemble. He sued the pop groupthe Move for libel after the band's managerTony Secunda published a promotional postcard for the single "Flowers in the Rain", featuring a caricature depicting Wilson in bed with his female assistant,Marcia Williams. 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 leaderRoy Wood) were assigned in perpetuity to a charity of Wilson's choosing.[136]
Wilson coined the term 'Selsdon Man' to refer to the free market policies of the Conservative leaderEdward Heath, developed at a policy retreat held at theSelsdon Park Hotel in early 1970. This phrase, intended to evoke the 'primitive throwback' qualities of anthropological discoveries such asPiltdown Man andSwanscombe Man, was part of a British political tradition of referring to political trends by suffixing 'man'.[137] Other memorable phrases attributed to Wilson include "the white heat of the [technological] revolution", and "a week is a long time in politics", meaning that political fortunes can change extremely rapidly.[138] In his broadcast after the 1967 devaluation of the pound, Wilson said: "This does not mean that the pound here in Britain—in your pocket or purse—is worth any less" and the phrase "the pound in your pocket" subsequently took on a life of its own.[139]
Despite his successes, Wilson's reputation took a long time to recover from the low ebb reached after his second premiership. The reinvention of the Labour Party would take the better part of two decades at the hands ofNeil Kinnock,John Smith and, electorally and most conclusively,Tony Blair. Disillusion with Britain's weak economic performance and troubled industrial relations, combined with campaigning by figures such as SirKeith Joseph, had helped to make a radical market programme politically feasible forMargaret Thatcher (which was, in turn, to influence the subsequent Labour leadership, especially under Blair). An opinion poll in September 2011 found that Wilson came in third place when respondents were asked to name the best post-war Labour Party leader. He was beaten only by John Smith and Tony Blair.[140]
Much of the disillusionment with Harold Wilson as Labour's leader and prime minister was due to his perceived failure on the economic front. He pledged not to devalue sterling, but did exactly that in 1967; he promised to keep unemployment low, but had by 1970 accepted a higher rate of joblessness than the Conservatives had managed. Some of the elements in Labour's programme – the emphasis on steadier growth, for instance – were probably misguided. These problems and defeats have, however, obscured some of the real achievements of the period. Science and education spending grew very quickly; industrial investment rose; government was increasingly well informed and better advised about the performance of the economy. In an increasingly unstable and rapidly changing economic environment, this government's economic record is here shown to be, if not hugely impressive, then at least relatively creditable.
In 1963, Soviet defectorAnatoliy Golitsyn is said to have secretly claimed that Wilson was aKGB agent.[142] The majority of intelligence officers did not believe that Golitsyn was credible in this and various other claims, but a significant number did (most prominentlyJames Jesus Angleton, Deputy Director of Operations forCounterintelligence at the USCentral Intelligence Agency) and factional strife broke out between the two groups. FormerMI5 officerPeter Wright claimed in his memoirs,Spycatcher, that 30 MI5 agents then collaborated in an attempt to undermine Wilson. He later retracted that claim, saying that there was only one man.[143]
In March 1987, James Miller, a former agent, claimed that theUlster Workers' Council strike of 1974 had been promoted by MI5 to help destabilise Wilson's government.[144] In July 1987, Labour MPKen Livingstone used hismaiden 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 23 November 1988, argued that sources other than Peter Wright supported claims of a long-standing attempt by MI5 to undermine Wilson's government.[145]
On theBBC television programmeThe Plot Against Harold Wilson, broadcast on 16 March 2006 onBBC Two, it was claimed there were threats of acoup d'état against the Wilson government, which were corroborated by leading figures of the time on both the left and the right. Wilson told two BBC journalists,Barrie Penrose andRoger Courtiour, who recorded the meetings on acassette tape recorder, that he feared he was being undermined by MI5. The first time was in the late 1960s after the Wilson governmentdevalued the pound sterling but the threat faded afterConservative leaderEdward Heath won theelection of 1970. However, following the1972 British miners' strike Heath decided to hold an election to renew his mandate to govern inFebruary 1974 but lost narrowly to Wilson. There was again talk of a military coup, with rumours ofLord Mountbatten as head of an interim administration after Wilson had been deposed.[146] In 1974, theBritish Army occupiedHeathrow Airport on the grounds of training for possibleIRA terrorist action at the airport. Although the military stated that this was a plannedmilitary exercise,10 Downing Street was not informed in advance, and Wilson himself interpreted it as a show of strength, or warning, being made by the army.[147]
The characterisation of Harold Wilson as paranoid does not take account of the political context of the time, which was characterised by a paranoid political style generally which applied to both left and right (including MI5 itself). The suspicion of Wilson and others towards the unlawful activities of the security services and other right-wing figures resulted from concrete domestic and international developments discussed in more detail below. Andrew is correct to be sceptical, and there remains limited evidence of a 'plot' if a plot is defined as a tightly organised high-level conspiracy with a detailed plan. However, there is evidence of a conspiracy: a loosely connected series of unlawful manoeuvres against an elected government by a group of like-minded figures.[148]
The Director-General of the Security Service assured Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher, and she told the House of Commons on 6 May 1987:
He has found no evidence of any truth in the allegations. He has given me his personal assurance that the stories are false. In particular, he has advised me that all the Security Service officers who have been interviewed have categorically denied that they were involved in, or were aware of, any activities or plans to undermine or discredit Lord Wilson and his Government when he was prime minister.[149][150]
In 2009,The Defence of the Realm held that while MI5 kept a file on Wilson from 1945 when he became an MP—because communist civil servants claimed that he had similar political sympathies—there was no bugging of his home or office, and no conspiracy against him.[151] In 2010 newspaper reports made detailed allegations that theCabinet Office had required that the section on bugging of10 Downing Street be omitted from the history for "wider public interest reasons". In 1963, on Macmillan's orders following the Profumo affair, MI5 bugged the Cabinet room, the waiting room, and the prime minister's study until the devices were removed in 1977 on Callaghan's orders. From the records, it is unclear if Wilson or Heath knew of the bugging, and no recorded conversations were retained by MI5 so possibly the bugs were never activated.[152] Professor Andrew had previously recorded in the preface of the history that "One significant excision as a result of these [Cabinet Office] requirements (in the chapter on The Wilson Plot) is, I believe, hard to justify", giving credence to these new allegations.[153]
As a result of his concerns about the danger to British parliamentary democracy, Wilson issued instructions that no agency should ever bug the telephones of any members of Parliament, a policy (still in place) which came to be known as theWilson Doctrine.[citation needed]
Wilson was elected aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1969 under Statute 12 of the Society's regulations, which covers people who have rendered conspicuous service to the cause of science or are such that their election would be of signal benefit to the Society.[154]
A portrait of Harold Wilson, painted by the Scottish portrait artistCowan Dobson, hangs today at University College, Oxford.[156] Two statues of Harold Wilson stand in prominent places. The first, unveiled by the then prime ministerTony Blair in July 1999, stands outsideHuddersfield railway station in St George's Square, Huddersfield. Costing £70,000, the statue, designed by sculptorIan Walters, is based on photographs taken in 1964 and depicts Wilson in walking pose at the start of his first term as prime minister. His widow, Mary requested that the eight-foot-tall monument not show Wilson holding his famous pipe as she feared it would make the representation a caricature.[157]
A block of high-rise flats in Huddersfield is named after Wilson.[citation needed]
In September 2006,Tony Blair unveiled a second bronze statue of Wilson in the latter's former constituency ofHuyton, nearLiverpool. The statue was created by Liverpool sculptor, Tom Murphy, and Blair paid tribute to Wilson's legacy at the unveiling, including theOpen University. He added: "He also brought in a whole new culture, a whole new country. He made the country very, very different".[158]
Also in 2006, a street on a new housing development inTividale, West Midlands, was named Wilson Drive in honour of Wilson. Along with neighbouring new development Callaghan Drive (named afterJames Callaghan), it formed part of a large housing estate developed since the 1960s where all streets were named after former prime ministers or senior parliamentary figures.[citation needed]
As a Knight of the Garter, Wilson's arms were displayed on a stall plate at St George's Chapel, Windsor.[159]
Crest
Upon a rock a lighthouse in front thereof a spade blade downwards and a quill point downwards in saltire all Proper.
Escutcheon
Argent an ancient ship Proper on a chief Gules a stag's head caboshed Or between two water bougets Argent.[160]
Supporters
Dexter a winged lion Purpure charged on the wing with three roses Argent barbed and seeded Proper sinister a griffin Or charged on the wing with three roses Gules barbed and seeded Proper.
^Nicholas-Thomas Symonds,Harold Wilson: The Winner (Orion Publishing Company, 2023).
^Andrew S. Crines and Kevin Hickson, eds.,Harold Wilson: The Unprincipled Prime Minister?: A Reappraisal of Harold Wilson (Biteback Publishing, 2016) p. 311.
^Moore, Peter G. (1996). "Obituary: James Harold Wilson 1916–95".Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society).159 (1): 167.doi:10.1111/j.1467-985X.1996.tb00710.x.JSTOR2983476.
^Timothy Heppell, "The Labour Party leadership election of 1963: Explaining the unexpected election of Harold Wilson."Contemporary British History 24.2 (2010): 151–171.
^Rhiannon Vickers, "Harold Wilson, the British Labour Party, and the War in Vietnam."Journal of Cold War Studies 10#2 (2008): 41–70.onlineArchived 16 December 2019 at theWayback Machine
^abHarold Wilson, "The Labour Government, 1964–70: a Personal Record".
^The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (1994), p. 359.
^French, David (1990).The British Way in Warfare, 1688–2000. Routledge. p. 220.ISBN978-0-04-445789-3.
^"BBC Politics 97". BBC. 18 June 1970.Archived from the original on 20 January 2012. Retrieved26 September 2011.
^Twentieth-century Britain: a political history by W. D. Rubinstein, p. 298.
^Clark, George (1970). "The General Election Campaign, 1970".The Times Guide to the House of Commons 1970. London: Times Newspapers Limited. p. 26.
^Clark, George (1970). "The General Election Campaign, 1970".The Times Guide to the House of Commons 1970. London: Times Newspapers Limited. pp. 30–31.
^Rose, Richard (1970). "Voting Trends Surveyed".The Times Guide to the House of Commons 1970. London: Times Newspapers Limited. p. 31.
^The Times Guide to the House of Commons 1970. London: Times Newspapers Limited. 1970. p. 249.
^Donoghue, Denis (31 October 2001)."May 1972 | Ireland: The View from Dublin".The Atlantic.Archived from the original on 16 May 2008. Retrieved20 April 2010.Edward Heath thanked him without adopting his suggestions.
^Glen O'Hara "'Dynamic, Exciting, Thrilling Change': the Wilson Government's Economic Policies, 1964–70,"Contemporary British History (2006), 20:3, 383–402, DOI: 10.1080/13619460500407087
^Jon Moran, "Conspiracy and contemporary history: revisiting MI5 and the Wilson plot[s]."Journal of Intelligence History (2014) 13#2, pp. 161–175, quote at p. 162.
^Jon Moran, "Conspiracy and contemporary history" at fn 32.
^abcMost news sources give Wilson's date of death as 24 May 1995. However, his biography ongov.uk states that he died on 23 May 1995,[1] as does his entry in theOxford Dictionary of National Biography, which cites his death certificate.[2]
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