Harold Wilson: The Winner

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Our dedicated coverage of Labour's policies and personalities, internal debates, selections and elections relies on donations from our readers. In this riveting and very readable biography, Thomas-Symonds con firms that Wilson's governments created a kinder, fairer, and forward-thinking Britain. This work is an analysis of the developing role of the Prime Minister's office from Walpole to the 1960s, giving a unique insight into the shifts of political power within and beyond the government.

This book offers a robust counter-narrative to existing appraisals of Wilson’s governments and his influence on British politics. First, Wilson was always going to host only two programs (this was announced in advance), so it wasn’t a permanent post.This year marks the centenary of Harold Wilson’s birth, the fiftieth anniversary of his most impressive general election victory and forty years since his dramatic resignation as Prime Minister. Trade unions represented the sectional interests of their members; said members saw their unions as ‘guardians for what they regarded as limited, piecemeal objectives in a competitive labour market’ (p. In so doing he seeks to make a virtue of the many manoeuvres by which Wilson kept his party together and in power. All the old canards were dredged up and regurgitated to produce a consensus that he had something to hide.

In an intriguing paradox, Wilson, influenced by the distinctively democratic faith of his Yorkshire boyhood, united a fractured Labour Party, ushering in the cultural and social changes of the ‘swinging sixties’. But Wilson said the opposite in his 1971 book, and in his 1976 interviews with David Frost he stated: “I was much more worried about the 1970 election than any other I’ve ever fought … I was very worried … [In the final week of the campaign] I was almost ready to believe we would lose.As Andrew Holden put it in a recent work, Wilson’s appointment of Jenkins implied a ‘willing acceptance of what was to come’, given that Jenkins’ views on social reform were well known (p. Nick Thomas-Symonds lives in Torfaen with his wife Rebecca, his daughters Matilda and Florence, and his son William. Failure to devalue in 1964 saw the government sacrifice in vain its ‘mandate to end the ‘stop-go’ cycles of economic management’ (p.

Nonetheless, if the biggest criticism of a political biography one can draw is that it tells you more about its subject than its author, it can hardly be viewed as a failure. Wilson was a British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. Yet his publicly projected image of being ‘a kindly, informal man, with not too many airs and graces, had such purchase because it was largely true’ (p.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. The author also makes a convincing case for Wilson as quietly feminist, having many trusted women allies whom he did not view as different to the men around then, and as meaningfully interested in racial equality. One suspects this has more to do with Wilson’s carefully curated public face than Thomas-Symonds’ skill as a biographer. This copy signed by Harold Wilson on the title-page (no other marks or inscriptions) CONDITION: An extremely well preserved almost AS NEW very clean and tight unread copy (merest hint of tanning to leaves) in a very slightly edge-nicked but otherwise FINE complete Dust Jacket (looks fine in its removable transparent protector) ] .

No bloody vision’, but slowly and effectively Wilson began putting forward a prospectus for a modern Britain that avoided old arguments of left and right and was based on planned economic management, a harnessing of new technologies and a cradle-to-grave education system that excluded no one. An account of the functioning of the British government in the 20th century, published the year Wilson left office for the second time. Furthermore, if those who decide the allocations of the real and unreal are cruel, mad or colossally wrong, what then? That said, the impact of the devaluation crisis undoubtedly hamstrung the rest of Labour’s spell in power in the 1960s.Britain's power and influence: Dealing with three roles and the Wilson government's defence debate at Chequers in November 1964. Nick Thomas-Symonds, in his entertaining and assured biography, paints a portrait of a man who embodied all the contradictions of the movement he led -- Daniel Finkelstein * THE TIMES * Very well written .