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| - Harold Wilson is a British politician and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He first entered office on 16 October 1964 and first left office on 19 June 1970. He was a member of the Labour party. This article is a . You can help My English Wiki by expanding it.
- James Harold Wilson was Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964-70 and 1974-76. Although most of what he did was the usual Prime Minister stuff, for some reason his time in office, as well as his then-unexplained sudden resignation, led to a number of conspiracy theories, a coup plot and the formation of shadowy right-wing groups of malcontents and old soldiers. He also had the excellent Roy Jenkins as his Home Secretary during his first stint as PM - Jenkins was responsible for relaxing the divorce laws, abolishing censorship of the theatre, decriminalising homosexuality, abolishing capital punishment and the legislation of abortion, all in an effort to bring about what he called a "civilised society".
- Wilson appointed James Callaghan as the Chancellor of the Exchequer following Labour's victory. (AUDIO: State of Emergency) Callaghan later served as Prime Minister himself from 1976 to 1979. (AUDIO: The Oseidon Adventure) He was very much in favour of science and technology. In October 1963, he made a speech to that effect at a Scarborough conference of his party. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) The cover story for the Vault, a UNIT facility that stored alien artifacts, was Wilson's mandate to find new technologies to help the nation's industry. (PROSE: One Cold Step)
- The man with the pipe. James Harold Wilson (1916-1995) was British Prime Minister from 1964 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976. He contested five elections- winning four of them. Born in Huddersfield, Wilson won a scholarship to a local grammar school. However, due to a failiure to get work, his father moved them to Spital, on the Wirral, and he then became the first head boy the school he attended for Sixth Form, and then he went to Oxford. After a brief time as a Liberal, he became a Labour member and was one of the very large class of Labour MPs that arrived in the 1945 landslide, after being a civil servant during World War Two.
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| abstract
| - Harold Wilson is a British politician and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He first entered office on 16 October 1964 and first left office on 19 June 1970. He was a member of the Labour party. This article is a . You can help My English Wiki by expanding it.
- The man with the pipe. James Harold Wilson (1916-1995) was British Prime Minister from 1964 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976. He contested five elections- winning four of them. Born in Huddersfield, Wilson won a scholarship to a local grammar school. However, due to a failiure to get work, his father moved them to Spital, on the Wirral, and he then became the first head boy the school he attended for Sixth Form, and then he went to Oxford. After a brief time as a Liberal, he became a Labour member and was one of the very large class of Labour MPs that arrived in the 1945 landslide, after being a civil servant during World War Two. In 1947, he got the Cabinet-level job of President of the Board of Trade (now generally known as Business Secretary), but resigned from the Shadow Cabinet in 1951 in protest over Hugh Gaitskell's shadow budget. In 1960, he tried and failed to remove Gaitskell from the Labour leadership. When Gaitskell suddenly died three years later, Wilson became leader. Narrowly defeating Sir Alec Douglas-Home's Tories in 1964, he won a landslide in 1966, then lost the 1970 election in a surprise defeat. The hung parliament of February 1974 led to Labour winning most seats but not most votes, Wilson becoming PM and then going to the country again in October. Labour got a majority of 3. Wilson surprised everyone when he stood down in March 1976. He had Alzheimer's, which became apparent after he left. Wilson's time in office, the longest Labour Prime Minister until Tony Blair, saw:
* The decision to devalue the pound in 1967
* The Vietnam War (Wilson supported the war, but did not provide troops)
* Decolonisation in general, and Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence in particular
* England's World Cup triumph in 1966
* A failed EEC entry attempt in 1967 (vetoed by France)
* The abolition of the death penalty
* Legalising homosexuality and abortion
* The Representation of the People Act of 1969, which reduced the voting age from 21 to 18
* A national referendum of membership of the EEC in 1975 (to resolve a split in Labour, where members were allowed to campaign on either side), which led to a vote to stay winning with 67,2% Wilson was a very good tactician and the first PM to understand the power of television. His precise views on Polaris varied on the audience (he ultimately went ahead with the order) and he was the first Prime Minister to be fully aware of the potentials of media. An attempt at a post-premiership talk show, though, failed- he just wasn't any good. He stayed an MP until 1983, then went to the Lords, but dropped out of public life after 1987. In his last two years as PM, got paranoid about MI5 plotting a coup and being bugged. It is also rumoured he was a Soviet agent, or at least a 'useful idiot' of the kind Stalin liked.
* The Beatles' song "Taxman" mentions "Mr. Wilson" and "Mr. Heath" (Harold Wilson and then-opposition leader Edward Heath). A year before the song's release Wilson -- savvy to the mood of the public regarding the band -- had them awarded the M.B.E (Member of the British Empire).
* Wilson and Heath were made fun of occasionally in Monty Python's Flying Circus, usually as one-off throwaway gags.
* Wilson is depicted in the HBO film "Longford."
* He was the first Prime Minister to have a regular parody in Private Eye ("Mrs Wilson's Diary", supposedly his day-to-day routine as told by his wife) and was commonly nicknamed "Wislon", after a typographical error that made him sound like an alien menace.
* Via trick photography, Wilson (then the PM) appears as one of the celebrities who embrace the craze for the Lancastrian martial art of 'Ecky-Thump' in The Goodies. He knocks out the policeman guarding Number Ten with a black pudding...without ever removing his pipe.
* He appeared on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas show in 1978, partially because when writer Eddie Braben was a child in The Forties, Wilson had paid him to hand out campaign leaflets.
- Wilson appointed James Callaghan as the Chancellor of the Exchequer following Labour's victory. (AUDIO: State of Emergency) Callaghan later served as Prime Minister himself from 1976 to 1979. (AUDIO: The Oseidon Adventure) He was very much in favour of science and technology. In October 1963, he made a speech to that effect at a Scarborough conference of his party. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) The cover story for the Vault, a UNIT facility that stored alien artifacts, was Wilson's mandate to find new technologies to help the nation's industry. (PROSE: One Cold Step) Soon after the general election, General Peters attempted a coup; something which Wilson had suspected, as many people (including MI5 itself) felt that he was a "Trotskyite". Taken hostage, Wilson refused to resign and allow Peters to claim a legal change of government. After the Intrusion Countermeasures Group saved his life and ended the coup, Wilson arranged for them to be fully funded until 1969. (AUDIO: State of Emergency) In 1965, his government negotiated with the 456: a dozen children in exchange for a needed vaccine. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Three) As head of Countermeasures, Sir Toby Kinsella was in direct contact with Wilson. Behind his back, Sir Toby considered Wilson to be a "bore". In 1965, he told Allison Williams that laughing at Wilson's jokes was one of the many duties that he had to perform for Queen and Country. (AUDIO: The Forgotten Village) He took a grim view on Wilson and nuclear war, saying he'd be rushed to a bunker "leaving us all to burn while he tucks into his beer and sandwiches" (he then admitted he'd had a place in the bunker but had lost it). (AUDIO: The Fifth Citadel) In 1966, the Ninth Doctor read a Daily Mirror article about "Wilson's wage freeze". He believed this was a "bad idea". (COMIC: The Love Invasion) In later years, Wilson's position seemed untenable after the failures of the Wenley Moor nuclear research facility in October 1969 and the Inferno Project in February 1970 were publicised by James Stevens in his "Bad Science" series of articles. Wilson called a general election for June 1970. The Labour Party lost and the Conservative leader Edward Heath took over as Prime Minister. Political observers speculated that the publication of the book version of "Bad Science" had coincided not-so-incidentally with the election. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) In 1974, Wilson attended a Ministry of Defence briefing about the Daleks. Several children were surprised to see him and not Heath until Emilie explained "it's Mr Wilson's turn [as PM] this month". (PROSE: Daleks: The Secret Invasion) An android replica of Harold Wilson was among a succession of android British Prime Ministers from Robert Walpole to Margaret Thatcher created by Tasq. (PROSE: Time Wake)
- James Harold Wilson was Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964-70 and 1974-76. Although most of what he did was the usual Prime Minister stuff, for some reason his time in office, as well as his then-unexplained sudden resignation, led to a number of conspiracy theories, a coup plot and the formation of shadowy right-wing groups of malcontents and old soldiers. He also had the excellent Roy Jenkins as his Home Secretary during his first stint as PM - Jenkins was responsible for relaxing the divorce laws, abolishing censorship of the theatre, decriminalising homosexuality, abolishing capital punishment and the legislation of abortion, all in an effort to bring about what he called a "civilised society".
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