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“... had Zionist leanings, and liked the company of the powerful: the same could be said of Sir Harold Wilson. The second criticism seems to me to be made by people who have either not read the book itself, but only what has been said about it, or who have read it superficially. The account the author gives of the anti-semitism of which he himself was ...”

“... Sir Gerald Nabarro once said that without his moustache he might be mistaken for a nobody like Harold Wilson; behind his formidable moustache and haughty stare Kitchener was as scheming and ambitious a self-publicist as ever wore uniform. That poster was his apogee: it might as accurately have been captioned ‘Your Country Needs ME.’ From the ...”

“... Willie Whitelaw and Reginald Maudling (both Conservatives) and the diplomat Con O’Neill. Harold Wilson supported Britain’s continued membership of the Common Market, but did so from the sidelines, and – in a break from the norms of collective responsibility – allowed members of his cabinet to dissent from his own recommendation. The ...”

“... was a systemic flaw in British colonialism in the 19th century, and for long afterwards: look at Harold Wilson and Rhodesia. Most colonies were run on a shoestring, and were expected to finance themselves. Generally the British depended on native collaborators to help them, and only in India did Britain have anything like the number of troops needed to ...”

“... of wage restraint for a limited time, but by the 1950s Attlee would have had no more success than Harold Wilson was to have in sustaining an incomes policy. It was as unacceptable as compulsory arbitration or, worse still, direction of labour. The unions were not yet as unpopular with the general public as they subsequently became. But it was not only ...”

“... in 1965 to Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party proved unhelpful, Ted Heath was quicker than Harold Wilson to commit his party to legislative devolution.While Labour’s commitment to legislative devolution waxed and waned in the pre-Thatcher era, the Liberals remained consistent in their support for home rule within a federal UK. From the late ...”

“... political triumph. In October 1964 Labour won the general election with a majority of four seats. Harold Wilson told the cabinet that it was too late to cancel the Polaris programme – though it wasn’t – and carried his point. Two years later, the fleet carriers were scrapped by the defence review. Then the crisis following the devaluation of ...”

“... word being closely attended to, even feared, by ministers and by the public. And it was feared. Harold Wilson’s 1964-70 and 1974-76 Governments and James Callaghan’s 1976-79 Administration spent more time cajoling, ‘standing up to’, browbeating, placating and schmoozing with union leaders than with any other group. Robert Taylor’s close ...”

“... ethos of Welfare State consensus politics, which so dominated English life from Attlee to Wilson, has not only been at the forefront of some of his writing, but has also provided the unifying background and underlying value structure to all of it. For nearly forty years, Briggs has been the most ‘relevant’ of historians – of his time and for his ...”

“... to suspect certain spooks or ex-spooks of plotting – effectively or otherwise – to bring down Harold Wilson. It was certainly not – on its own – evidence of mental illness on Wilson’s part. MI5 was bound to be a likely suspect: highly secretive, socially exclusive, largely unaccountable, right-wing, reputedly ...”

“... those who remember who won. His treatment of major political figures is untypically nuanced: both Harold Macmillan and Harold Wilson escape the caricature that popular history has handed down. He writes effectively about the ins and outs of economic policy, charting the complex conflicts between One Nation Toryism and ...”

“... true. The last British government (of whose failings Marquand is well aware – see the essay ‘Harold Wilson: Alibi for a Party’) which had any overall control or came close to achieving its apparent objectives was Wilson’s 1964 government; and Callaghan’s government was brought to grief because it did try to ...”

“... which did not offer coagulation by locality. Meanwhile Baker’s parodies roll rightmindedly by: Harold Wilson and the trade unions get theirs, and so of course do Kinnock and the nuclear fudgers. Fair enough, or rather not quite enough, since it is only Baker’s party pris which deems right-wing mendacious folly to be a protected species. Anyway these ...”

“... waiting behind the door with a cosh and a dildo. He even had the galley of his Times obit for Harold Wilson nicked by a smarter than usual short-stay guest, who flogged it to Private Eye. Any intelligence service reposing confidence in Tom’s discretion and silence, in other words, would have had to be even more cretinously incontinent about secrecy ...”

“... reform. Possibly the only Labour leader before now who loved office as much as the Tories was Harold Wilson, and he misjudged the moment in 1970. Tony Blair, as far as one can see, might lose power but he will not run away from it. He might, therefore, be the first Labour leader to see that electoral reform is not only desirable in itself but good ...”