Anthony Eden

Anthony Eden

Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservativepolitician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957. He was also Foreign Secretary for three periods between 1935 and 1955, including during the Second World War. He is best known for his outspoken opposition to appeasement in the 1930s, his diplomatic leadership in the 1940s and 1950s, and the failure of his Middle East policy in 1956 that ended his premiership. HP Pavilion DV4-1214TU Battery

Eden's worldwide reputation as an opponent of appeasement, a "Man of Peace", and a skilled diplomat was overshadowed in the second year of his premiership when the United States refused to support the Anglo-French military response to the Suez Crisis, which critics across party lines regarded as an historic setback for British foreign policy, signalling the end of British predominance in the Middle East.[1] Most historians argue that he made a series of blunders, HP Pavilion DV4-1214TX Battery

especially not realizing the depth of opposition to military action by the US.[2] Most historians say that Eden completely dominated the British decision-making process in the Suez crisis. However, Jonathan Pearson argues in Sir Anthony Eden and the Suez Crisis: Reluctant Gamble (2002) that Eden was more reluctant and less bellicose than most historians say. HP Pavilion DV4-1215EF Battery

He is generally ranked among the least successful British Prime Ministers of the 20th century,[3][4] although two broadly sympathetic biographies (in 1986 and 2003) have gone some way to redressing the balance of opinion.[5] Thorpe says, the Suez Crisis "was a truly tragic end to his premiership, and one that came to assume a disproportionate importance in any assessment of his career."[6] HP Pavilion DV4-1215TU Battery

Early life

Eden was born at Windlestone Hall, County Durham, England, into a very conservative landed gentry family. He was a younger son of Sir William Eden, baronet, from an old titled family. His mother, Sybil Frances Grey, was a member of the famous Grey family of Northumberland (see below). This was perhaps the meaning of Rab Butler's later gibe that Eden—in later life a handsome but ill-tempered man—was "half mad baronet, half beautiful woman".[7] Eden's great-grandfather was William Iremonger who commanded the 2nd Regiment of Foot during the Peninsular War, fighting under Wellington (as he became) at Vimiero.[8] HP Pavilion DV4-1215TX Battery

There was speculation for many years that Eden's father was the politician and man of letters George Wyndham, but this is considered impossible as Wyndham was in South Africa at the time of Eden's conception.[9] His mother was rumoured to have had an affair with Wyndham.[7] Eden had an elder brother called John, who was killed in action in 1914[10] and a younger brother, Nicholas, who was killed when the battlecruiser HMS Indefatigable blew up and sank at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.[11] HP Pavilion DV4-1216TU Battery

Education and War service

Eden was educated at two independent schools: at Sandroyd School[12] from 1907–1910, at the time based in Cobham in Surrey (and now the home of Reed's School), followed by Eton College, in Eton in Berkshire, where he won a Divinity prize and excelled at cricket, rugby and rowing, winning House colours in the latter.[13] HP Pavilion DV4-1216TX Battery

During the First World War, Eden served with the 21st (Yeoman Rifles) Battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, and reached the rank of captain. He received a Military Cross, and at the age of twenty-one became the youngest brigade-major in the British Army. At a conference in the early 1930s, he and Adolf Hitler observed that they had probably fought on opposite sides of the trenches in the Ypres sector. HP Pavilion DV4-1217LA Battery

After the war, he studied at Christ Church at the University of Oxford, where he graduated inOriental Languages. He was fluent in French, German and Persian, and also spoke Russian and Arabic. His main leisure interest at the time was art, and he took no part in undergraduate politics. HP Pavilion DV4-1217TX Battery

Life and career

Like many aspirant politicians Captain Eden, as he was still known, first contested a seat where he had little chance of winning in the November 1922 general election, and was then elected Member of Parliament for Warwick and Leamington in the December 1923 general election, as a Conservative, at the age of twenty-six. Also in that year he married Beatrice Beckett. They had three sons, one of whom died in infancy, but the marriage was not a success and later broke up under the strain of a son missing in action during the latter half of the Second World War. HP Pavilion DV4-1218TX Battery

In the 1924–1929 Conservative Government, Eden was first Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary, Sir William Joynson Hicks, and then in 1926 to the Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain. In 1931 he held his first ministerial office as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In 1934 he was appointed Lord Privy Seal and Minister for the League of Nations inStanley Baldwin's Government. HP Pavilion DV4-1219TX Batterycv   332222222221121zfo0rr4[pp       dw3eszzzseyt

Like many of his generation who had served in the First World War, Eden was strongly anti-war, and strove to work through the League of Nations to preserve European peace. However, he was among the first to recognise that peace could not be maintained by appeasement of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. He privately opposed the policy of the Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, of trying to appease Italy during its invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935. When Hoare resigned after the failure of theHoare-Laval Pact, Eden succeeded him as Foreign Secretary. When Eden had his first audience with King George V, the King is said to have remarked, "No more coals to Newcastle, no more Hoares to Paris." HP Pavilion DV4-1220BR Battery

At this stage in his career Eden was considered as something of a leader of fashion. He regularly wore a Homburg hat (similar to a trilby but more rigid), which became known in Britain as an "Anthony Eden".

Foreign secretary and resignation (1935–38)

Eden became Foreign Secretary at a time when Britain was having to adjust its foreign policy to face the rise of the fascist powers. HP Pavilion DV4-1220TX Battery

He supported the policy of non-interference in the Spanish Civil War through conferences like the Nyon Conference, and supported prime minister Neville Chamberlain in his efforts to preserve peace through reasonable concessions to Germany. TheItalian-Ethiopian War was brewing, and Eden tried in vain to persuade Mussolini to submit the dispute to the League of Nations. The Italian dictator scoffed at Eden publicly as "the best dressed fool in Europe." HP Pavilion DV4-1220US Battery

He did not protest when Britain and France failed to oppose Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936. When the French requested a meeting with a view to some kind of military action in response to Hitler's occupation, Eden in a statement firmly ruled out any military assistance to France.[1His resignation in February 1938 was largely attributed to growing dissatis faction with Chamberlain's policy of Appeasement. That is, however, disputed by new research; HP Pavilion DV4-1221TX Battery

it was not the question if there should be negotiations with Italy, but only when they should start and how far they should be carried.[1] Similarly, he at no point registered his dissatisfaction with the appeasement policy directed towards Nazi Germany in his period as Foreign Secretary. He became a Conservative dissenter leading a group conservative whip David Margesson called the "Glamour Boys," and a leading anti-appeaser like Winston Churchill, who led a similar group called "The Old Guard."[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1222LA Battery

Although Churchill claimed to have lost sleep the night of Eden's resignation (later recounted in his wartime memoirs The Gathering Storm, 1948), they were not allies and did not see eye to eye until Churchill became Prime Minister. There was much speculation that Eden would become a rallying point for all the disparate opponents of Neville Chamberlain, but his position declined heavily amongst politicians as he maintained a low profile, avoiding confrontation, though he opposed the Munich Agreement and abstained in the vote on it in the House of Commons. HP Pavilion DV4-1222NR Battery

However, he remained popular in the country at large, and in later years was often wrongly supposed to have resigned as Foreign Secretary in protest at the Munich Agreement.

In a 1967 interview Eden explained his decision to resign: "It was not over protocol, Chamberlain's communicating with Mussolini without telling me. I never cared a goddamn, a tuppence about protocol. HP Pavilion DV4-1222TX Battery

The reason for my resignation was that we had an agreement with Mussolini about the Mediterranean and Spain, which he was violating by sending troops to Spain, and Chamberlain wanted to have another agreement. I thought Mussolini should honor the first one before we negotiated for the second. I was trying to fight a delaying action for Britain, and I could not go along with Chamberlain's policy."[16]

Second World War (1939–45) HP Pavilion DV4-1223LA Battery

In September 1939, on the outbreak of war, Eden, who had briefly rejoined the army with the rank of major, returned to Chamberlain's government as Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, but was not in the War Cabinet. As a result, he was not a candidate for the Premiership when Chamberlain resigned after Germany invaded France in May 1940 and Churchill became Prime Minister. Churchill appointed Eden Secretary of State for War. HP Pavilion DV4-1223TX Battery

At the end of 1940 Eden returned to the Foreign Office, and in this role became a member of the executive committee of thePolitical Warfare Executive in 1941. Although he was one of Churchill's closest confidants, his role in wartime was restricted because Churchill conducted the most important negotiations, with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, himself, but Eden served loyally as Churchill's lieutenant.[1] HP Pavilion DV4-1224LA Battery

Nevertheless he was in charge of handling much of the relations between Britain and de Gaulle during the last years of the war. Eden was often critical of the emphasis Churchill put on the Special Relationship with the United States, and was often disappointed by American treatment of their British allies.[1]

In 1942 Eden was given the additional job of Leader of the House of Commons. He was considered for various other major jobs during and after the war, HP Pavilion DV4-1224TX Battery

including Commander-in-Chief Middle East in 1942 (this would have been a very unusual appointment as Eden was a civilian; General Harold Alexander was in fact appointed), Viceroy of India in 1943 (General Archibald Wavell was appointed to this job), or Secretary-General of the newly formed United Nations Organisation in 1945. In 1943 with the revelation of the Katyn Massacre Eden refused to help the Polish Government in Exile.[17] HP Pavilion DV4-1225DX Battery

In 1944 Eden went to Moscow to negotiate with the Soviet Union at the Tolstoy Conference. Eden also opposed the Morgenthau Plan to deindustrialise Germany. After the Stalag Luft III murders he vowed in the House of Commons to bring the perpetrators of the crime to "exemplary justice", leading to a successful manhunt after the war by the Royal Air Force Special Investigation Branch.[17] HP Pavilion DV4-1225EE Battery

Eden's eldest son, Pilot Officer Simon Gascoigne Eden, went missing in action, later declared deceased, while serving as anavigator with the RAF in Burma, in June 1945.[18] There was a close bond between Anthony and Simon, and Simon's death was a great personal shock to his father, who nevertheless accepted it. Lady Eden reportedly reacted differently to her son's loss, and this led to a breakdown in the marriage. De Gaulle wrote him a personal letter of condolence in French. HP Pavilion DV4-1225LA Battery

In 1945, he was mentioned by Halvdan Koht among seven candidates that were qualified for the Nobel Prize in Peace. However, he did not explicitly nominate any of them. The person actually nominated was Cordell Hull.[19]

Opposition (1945–51)

After the Labour Party won the 1945 elections, Eden went into opposition as Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party. Many felt that Churchill should have retired and allowed Eden to become party leader, but Churchill refused to consider this. HP Pavilion DV4-1225TX Battery

As early as the spring of 1946 Eden openly asked Churchill to retire in his favour.[20] He was in any case depressed during this period by the break-up of his first marriage and the death of his eldest son. Churchill was in many ways only "part-time Leader of the Opposition",[1] given his many journeys abroad and his literary work, and left the day-to-day-work largely to Eden. Eden was largely regarded as lacking sense of party politics and contact with the common man.[21] HP Pavilion DV4-1226TX Battery

In these opposition years, however, he developed some knowledge about domestic affairs and created the idea of a"property-owning-democracy", which Margaret Thatcher's government attempted to achieve decades later. His domestic agenda is overall considered centre-left.[1]

Between 1946 and 1950, whilst separated from his wife, Eden conducted an open affair with Dorothy, Countess Beatty whilst she was married to David, Earl Beatty. [22]

Anthony Eden is the great-great-grandnephew of author Emily Eden and wrote an introduction to her 1860 novel The Semi-Attached Couple in 1947.[23] HP Pavilion DV4-1227LA Battery

Return to government (1951–55)

In 1951, the Conservatives returned to office and Eden became Foreign Secretary for a third time, as well as Deputy Prime Minister. Churchill was largely a figurehead in this government, and Eden had an effective control of British foreign policy for the first time, as the Empire declined and the Cold War grew more intense. He dealt effectively with the various crises of the period, although Britain was no longer the world power it had been before the war. The success of the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indo-China ranks as his outstanding achievement of his third term in the Foreign Office. HP Pavilion DV4-1227TX Battery

Eden had grave misgivings about American foreign policy under Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was irked by Dulles's policy of "brinkmanship", or display of muscle, in relations with the Communist world. He was also critical of the United States decision not to sign the 1954 Geneva accord on Vietnam, of which he was an architect.

During the summer and fall of 1954, the Anglo-Egyptian agreement to withdraw all British forces from Egypt was also negotiated and ratified. HP Pavilion DV4-1227US Battery

In 1950 he and Beatrice Eden were finally divorced, and in 1952 he married Churchill's niece, Clarissa Spencer-Churchill (b. 1920), a nominal Roman Catholic who was fiercely criticised by Catholic writer Evelyn Waugh for marrying a divorced man. This second marriage was much more successful than his first had been. In 1954 he was made a Knight of the Garter and became Sir Anthony Eden. HP Pavilion DV4-1228CA Battery

The release of war criminals

Upon regaining office, Winston Churchill and Eden moved for the release of the German war criminals still in British custody[24] following a policy focused on Anti-Communism and the emerging Cold War. In December 1951 Eden introduced to the Cabinet a policy, according to which pre-trial custody should be counted against sentences inflicted upon war criminals. HP Pavilion DV4-1228LA Battery

The pressure on Eden and the government to resolve the war criminals issue as quickly as possible increased during the summer of 1952, coinciding with the looming question of the ratification of the European Defence Community Treaty by West Germany. [25] On 24 October 1952 Eden signed an act of medical clemency in favour of the German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. HP Pavilion DV4-1228TX Battery

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Prime minister (1955–57)

In April 1955 Churchill finally retired, and Eden succeeded him as Prime Minister. He was a very popular figure, as a result of his long wartime service and his famous good looks and charm. His famous words "Peace comes first, always" added to his already substantial popularity.

On taking office he immediately called a general election for 27 May 1955, at which he increased the Conservative majority from seventeen to sixty, a majority which broke a ninety year record for any UK government. HP Pavilion DV4-1229LA Battery

The 1955 general election was the last in which the Conservatives won the majority share of the votes in Scotland. But Eden had never held a domestic portfolio and had little experience in economic matters. He left these areas to his lieutenants such as Rab Butler, and concentrated largely on foreign policy, forming a close relationship with U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. HP Pavilion DV4-1229TX Battery

Eden's attempts to maintain overall control of the Foreign Office drew widespread criticism.

Eden has the distinction of being the British prime minister to oversee the lowest unemployment figures of the post World War II era, with unemployment standing at just over 215,000 in July 1955 - barely 1% of the workforce.[26]

Suez (1956)

Further information: Suez Crisis and Operation Musketeer (1956)

The alliance with the US proved not universal, however, when in July 1956 Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt, unexpectedly nationalised (seized) the Suez Canal, following the withdrawal of Anglo-American funding for the Aswan Dam. HP Pavilion DV4-1230BR Battery

The nationalisation was in violation of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement that Nasser had signed with the British and French governments on 19 October 1954. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were certain to block any sanctions against Nasser at the United Nations. The UK and a conference of other nations met in London following the nationalisation in an attempt to resolve the crisis through diplomatic means. HP Pavilion DV4-1230TX Battery

However, a series of eighteen proposals, including an offer of Egyptian representation on the board of the Suez Canal Company and a share of profits, were rejected by Nasser. Eden feared that Nasser intended to form an Arab Alliance that would cut off oil supplies to Europe and, in conjunction with France, decided he should be removed from power.[27] HP Pavilion DV4-1231TX Battery

Eden, drawing on his experience in the 1930s, saw Nasser as another Mussolini, considering the two men aggressive nationalist socialists determined to invade other countries. Others believed that Nasser was acting from legitimate patriotic concerns and the nationalisation was determined by the Foreign Office to be legal. The Attorney General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, was not asked for his opinion officially but made his views known through the Lord Chancellor that the government's contemplated armed strike against Egypt would be unlawful.[28] HP Pavilion DV4-1232TX Battery

Anthony Nutting recalled that Eden told him, "What's all this nonsense about isolating Nasser or 'neutralising' him as you call it? I want him destroyed, can't you understand? I want him murdered, and if you and the Foreign Office don't agree, then you'd better come to the cabinet and explain why." When Nutting pointed out that they had no alternative government to replace Nasser, Eden apparently replied, "I don't give a damn if there's anarchy and chaos in Egypt."[29] At a private meeting at Downing Street on 16 October 1956 Eden showed several ministers a plan, submitted two days earlier by French General Maurice Challe. HP Pavilion DV4-1233TX Battery

Israel would invade Egypt, Britain and France would give an ultimatum telling both sides to stop and, when one refused, send in forces to enforce the ultimatum, separate the two sides - and occupy the Canal and get rid of Nasser. When Nutting suggested the Americans should be consulted Eden replied, "I will not bring the Americans into this ... Dulles has done enough damage as it is. This has nothing to do with the Americans. We and the French must decide what to do and we alone."[30] HP Pavilion DV4-1234TX Battery

Eden initially considered sending the army into Libya, but then decided this risked inflaming Arab opinion.[31] Unlike the French prime minister Guy Mollet, who saw regaining the Canal as the primary objective, Eden believed the real need was to remove Nasser from office. He hoped that if the Egyptian army was swiftly and humiliatingly defeated by the Anglo-French forces then the Egyptian people would rise up against Nasser. HP Pavilion DV4-1235EE Battery

Eden told Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery that the overall aim of the mission was simply, "To knock Nasser off his perch."[32] In the absence of a popular uprising Eden and Mollet would say that Egyptian forces were incapable of defending their country and therefore Anglo-French forces would have to return to guard the Suez Canal. HP Pavilion DV4-1235EI Battery

Eden believed that if Nasser were seen to get away with seizing the Canal then Egypt and other Arab countries might move closer to the Soviet Union. Western Europe got 80-90% of their oil supplies from the Middle East. If Nasser were seen to get away with it, then other Middle East countries might be encouraged to nationalise their oil. The invasion, he contended at the time, and again in a 1967 interview, was aimed at maintaining the sanctity of international agreements and at preventing future unilateral denunciation of treaties.[33] Eden was energetic during the crisis in using the media, including the BBC, to incite public opinion to support his views of the need to overthrow Nasser.[34] HP Pavilion DV4-1235TX Battery

In September 1956 a plan was drawn up to reduce the flow of water in the Nile by using dams in an attempt to damage Nasser's position. However, the plan was abandoned because it would take months to implement, and due to fears that it could affect other countries like Uganda and Kenya.[35] On 25 September 1956 the Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan met with President Eisenhower at the White House; he misread Eisenhower's determination to avoid war and told Eden that the Americans would not in any way oppose the attempt to topple Nasser.[36] HP Pavilion DV4-1236TX Battery

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In any case Eden had known Eisenhower for years and had many direct contacts during the crisis, but Eden also misread the situation. The Americans were basically hostile to British imperialism, seeing the U.S. as the champion of decolonization; Eisenhower repeatedly emphasized the crisis had to be handled peacefully. Eden and other top British officials, incorrectly believed there the "special relationship" meant the U.S. would always come to Britain's aid in a war, even when Eisenhower specifically warned him that the Americans, and the world, "would be outraged" unless all peaceful routes had been exhausted, and even then "the eventual price might become far too heavy[37][38] HP Pavilion DV4-1237TX Battery

At the end of October 1956, Israel invaded and Britain and France, moved in ostensibly to bring peace but in fact to control the canal and overthrow Nasser. Eisenhower immediately and strongly opposed the invasion, and quickly forced Britain and France to retreat. The United Nations denounced the invasion; the Soviets were bellicose; only Australia spoke out for Britain's position. HP Pavilion DV4-1238TX Battery

Eisenhower did not see Nasser as a serious threat to the West, but he was concerned that the Soviets might side with Egypt. The United States acquired relatively little oil through the Suez Canal (about 15% of their national requirement in 1956) and the economic importance to America of the nationalisation of the canal was minimal. US investments in the Suez Canal Company was also negligible. HP Pavilion DV4-1239TX Battery

Eisenhower wanted to be seen as a man who could broker peace at an international level in regions that could be described as fragile in terms of peace. Eisenhower feared a huge backlash amongst the Arab nations if Egypt suffered an humiliating defeat at the hands of the British, French and Israelis—as seemed likely. He believed this would push Egypt and other Arab nations closer to the Soviets. It was well known that the USSR wanted a permanent warm water naval base in the Mediterranean Sea, which her Black Sea's fleet could use. HP Pavilion DV4-1240TX Battery

Eden, who faced domestic pressure from his party to take action, as well as stopping the decline of British influence in the Middle East,[1] had ignored Britain's financial dependence on the U.S. in the wake of the Second World War, and had overestimated US loyalty towards its closest ally. At the 'Law not War' rally inTrafalgar Square on 4 November 1956, Eden was ridiculed by Aneurin Bevan: 'Sir Anthony Eden has been pretending that he is now invading Egypt in order to strengthen the United Nations. HP Pavilion DV4-1242TX Battery

Every burglar of course could say the same thing, he could argue that he was entering the house in order to train the police. So, if Sir Anthony Eden is sincere in what he is saying, and he may be, then he is too stupid to be a prime minister'. However, modern historians agree that the majority of public opinion in the UK was on Eden's side.[39] Eden was forced to bow to American diplomatic and financial pressure, and protests at home, by calling a ceasefire when Anglo-French forces had captured only 23 miles of the Canal. HP Pavilion DV4-1243TX Battery

With the US threatening to devalue sterling, the Cabinet divided, and the Chancellor of the ExchequerHarold Macmillan threatening to resign unless an immediate ceasefire was called, Eden was under immense pressure. He considered defying the calls until the commander on the ground told him it could take up to six days for the Anglo-French troops to secure the entire Canal zone. The Suez Crisis is widely taken as marking the end of Britain's status as a superpower, although in reality this had happened by the end of the Second World War. HP Pavilion DV4-1244TX Battery

Suez damaged, in many eyes, Eden's reputation for statesmanship and led to a breakdown in his health. He went on vacation to Jamaica in November 1956, at a time when he was still determined to soldier on as Prime Minister. His health, however, did not improve and during his absence from London, his Chancellor Harold Macmillan andRab Butler worked to manoeuvre him out of office. On the morning of the ceasefire Eisenhower agreed to meet with Eden to publicly resolve their differences, but this offer was later withdrawn after Secretary of State Dulles advised that it could inflame the Middle Eastern situation further.[40] HP Pavilion DV4-1245BR Battery

The Observer newspaper accused Eden of lying to parliament over the Suez Crisis, while right-wing Conservative MPs criticised his calling a ceasefire before the Canal was taken. Eden easily survived a vote of confidence in the House of Commons on 8 November.[40] While Eden was in Jamaica other members of the government discussed on 20 November how to counter charges that the UK and France had worked in collusion with Israel in order to seize the Canal, but they decided there was very little evidence in the public domain.[41] HP Pavilion DV4-1245TX Battery

In his final statement to the House of Commons as Prime Minister on 20 December 1956, Eden told MPs "there was not foreknowledge that Israel would attack Egypt"; however, papers released in January 1987 showed the entire Cabinet had been informed of the plan on 23 October 1956.[31]

Thorpe has summarized Eden's central role in the Suez Crisis of 1956: HP Pavilion DV4-1246TX Battery

Eden's policy had four main aims: first, to secure the Suez Canal; second and consequentially, to ensure continuity of oil supplies; third, to remove Nasser; and fourth, to keep the Russians out of the Middle East. The immediate consequence of the crisis was that the Suez Canal was blocked, oil supplies were interrupted, Nasser's position as the leader of Arab nationalism was strengthened, and the way was left open for Russian intrusion into the Middle East. It was a truly tragic end to his premiership, and one that came to assume a disproportionate importance in any assessment of his career."[42] HP Pavilion DV4-1247TX Battery

1957 resignation

Eden resigned on 9 January 1957, after his doctors warned him his life was at stake if he continued in office.[43] Although the media expected Butler would get the nod, a survey of the Cabinet done for the Queen showed Macmillan was the nearly unanimous choice, and he became Prime Minister on 10 January 1957.[44] Shortly afterwards Eden and his wife left England for a holiday in New Zealand. HP Pavilion DV4-1248TX Battery

Eden retained much of his personal popularity in Britain, was created Earl of Avon in 1961, and entered the House of Lords. In retirement Eden was particularly bitter that Eisenhower had initially indicated British and French troops should be allowed to remain around Port Said, only for the US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. to press for an immediate withdrawal at the UN, thereby rendering the operation a complete failure. Eden felt the Eisenhower administration's unexpected opposition was hypocritical in light of the 1953 Iranian coup d'état and the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état. HP Pavilion DV4-1249TX Battery

In his 1987 book "Spycatcher" Peter Wright revealed that, following the imposed ending to the military operation, Eden reactivated the assassination option for a second time. By this time virtually all MI6 assets in Egypt had been rounded up by Nasser, and a new operation, using renegade Egyptian officers, was drawn up. However it failed principally because the cache of weapons which had been hidden on the outskirts of Cairo was found to be defective.[45] HP Pavilion DV4-1250TX Battery

Suez in retrospect

In 1986, Eden's official biographer Robert Rhodes James re-evaluated sympathetically Eden's stance over Suez[46] and in 1990, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, James asked: "Who can now claim that Eden was wrong?".[47] Such arguments turn mostly on whether, as a matter of policy, the Suez operation was fundamentally flawed or whether, as such "revisionists" thought, the lack of American support conveyed the impression that the West was divided and weak. HP Pavilion DV4-1251TX Battery

Anthony Nutting, who resigned as a Foreign Office Minister over Suez, expressed the former view in 1967, the year of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, when he wrote that "we had sown the wind of bitterness and we were to reap the whirlwind of revenge and rebellion".[48] Conversely, D. R. Thorpe, another of Eden's biographers, suggests that had the Suez venture succeeded, "there would almost certainly have been no Middle East war in 1967, and probably no Yom Kippur War in 1973 also".[49] HP Pavilion DV4-1252TX Battery

Guy Millard, Eden's Private Secretary, who thirty years later, in a radio interview, spoke publicly for the first time on the crisis, made an insider's judgement about Eden, "It was his mistake of course and a tragic and disastrous mistake for him. I think he overestimated the importance of Nasser, Egypt, the Canal, even of the Middle East itself."[31] HP Pavilion DV4-1253TX Battery

While British actions in 1956 are routinely described as "imperialistic", the motivation was in fact economic. Eden was a liberal supporter of nationalist ambitions, such as over Sudanese independence. His 1954 Suez Canal Base Agreement (withdrawing British troops from Suez in return for certain guarantees) was sold to the Conservative Party against Churchill's wishes.[50]

Health issuesHP Pavilion DV4-1254TX Battery

Eden’s life was changed forever by a medical mishap: during an operation in 1953 to remove gallstones his bile duct was damaged, leaving him susceptible to recurrent infections, biliary obstruction and liver failure. He suffered from cholangitis, an abdominal infection which became so agonising that he was admitted to hospital in 1956 with a temperature reaching 106°F. He required major surgery on three occasions to alleviate the problem. Eden would almost certainly have become Prime Minister when Churchill suffered a severe stroke on 23 June 1953, had he not been recovering from surgery in the United States at the time. HP Pavilion DV4-1255TX Battery

He was also prescribed Benzedrine, the wonder drug of the 1950s. Regarded then as a harmless stimulant, it belongs to the family of drugs called amphetamines, and at that time they were prescribed and used in a very casual way. Among the side effects of Benzedrine are insomnia, restlessness and mood swings, all of which Eden actually suffered during the Suez Crisis. HP Pavilion DV4-1256TX Battery

His drug use is now commonly agreed to have been a part of the reason for the Prime Minister's ill judgment.[1] Eden was in fact secretly hospitalised with a high fever, possibly as a result of his heavy medication, on 5–8 October 1956. He underwent further surgery at a New York hospital in April 1957. HP Pavilion DV4-1257TX Battery

In November 2006 private papers uncovered in the Eden family archives disclosed that he had been prescribed a powerful combination of amphetamines and barbiturates called drinamyl. Better known in post-war Britain as "purple hearts", they can impair judgement, cause paranoia and even make the person taking them lose contact with reality. Drinamyl was banned in 1978.[51] HP Pavilion DV4-1258TX Battery

Rejected plan for union between Britain and France

British Government cabinet papers from September 1956, during Eden's term as Prime Minister, have shown that French Prime Minister Guy Mollet approached the British Government suggesting the idea of an economic and political union between France and Great Britain.[52] This was a similar offer, in reverse, to that made by Churchill (drawing on a plan devised by Leo Amery[53]) in June 1940.[54] HP Pavilion DV4-1259TX Battery

The offer by Guy Mollet was referred to by Sir John Colville, Churchill's former private secretary, in his collected diaries, The Fringes of Power (1985), his having gleaned the information in 1957 from Air Chief Marshal Sir William Dickson during an air flight (and, according to Colville, after several whiskies and soda).[55] HP Pavilion DV4-1260TX Battery

Mollet's request for Union with Britain was rejected by Eden, but the additional possibility of France joining the Commonwealth of Nations was considered, although similarly rejected. Colville noted, in respect of Suez, that Eden and his Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd "felt still more beholden to the French on account of this offer".[55] HP Pavilion DV4-1265DX Battery

Retirement from politics

Eden soon retired and lived quietly with his second wife Clarissa, formerly Clarissa Spencer-Churchill, niece of Sir Winston, in 'Rose Bower' by the banks of theRiver Ebble in Broad Chalke, Wiltshire. He published a highly acclaimed personal memoir, Another World (1976), as well as several volumes of political memoirs, in which he, however, denied that there had been any collusion with France and Israel. HP Pavilion DV4-1272CM Battery

In his view, American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, whom he particularly disliked, was responsible for the ill fate of the Suez adventure. In an October press conference, barely three weeks before the fighting began, Dulles had coupled the Suez Canal issue with colonialism, and his statement infuriated Eden and much of the UK as well. HP Pavilion DV4-1275MX Battery

"The dispute over Nasser's seizure of the canal," wrote Eden, "had, of course, nothing to do with colonialism, but was concerned with international rights." He added that "if the United States had to defend her treaty rights in the Panama Canal, she would not regard such action as colonialism."[56] HP Pavilion DV4-1280US Battery

This lack of candour further diminished his standing and a principal concern in his later years was trying to rebuild his reputation that was severely damaged by Suez, sometimes taking legal action to protect his viewpoint.[1] It was not until some years after his death that a more balanced view of Suez came to be advanced by some historians and other commentators in the light of subsequent events. HP Pavilion DV4-1281US Battery

Eden faulted the United States for forcing him to withdraw, but he took credit for United Nations action in patrolling the Israeli-Egyptian borders. Eden said of the invasion, "Peace at any price has never averted war. We must not repeat the mistakes of the prewar years by behaving as though the enemies of peace and order are armed with only good intentions." Recalling the incident in a 1967 interview, he declared, "HP Pavilion DV4-1282CM Battery

I am still unrepentant about Suez. People never look at what would have happened if wehad done nothing. There is a parallel with the 1930s. If you allow people to break agreements with impunity, the appetite grows to feed on such things. I don't see what other we ought to have done. One cannot dodge. It is hard to act rather than dodge."[33] In his 1967 interview (which he stipulated would not be used until after his death), Eden acknowledged secret dealings with the French and "intimations" of the Israeli attack. HP Pavilion DV4-1283CL Battery

He insisted, however, that "the joint enterprise and the preparations for it were justified in the light of the wrongs it [the Anglo-French invasion] was designed to prevent." "I have no apologies to offer," Eden declared.[16] HP Pavilion DV4-1287CL Battery

Eden sat for extensive interviews for the famed multi-part Thames Television production, The World at War, which was first broadcast in 1973. He also featured frequently in Marcel Ophüls' 1969 documentary Le chagrin et la pitié, discussing the occupation of France in a wider geopolitical context. He spoke impeccable, if accented, French.[57] From 1945 to 1973, Eden was Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, England. HP Pavilion DV4-1290BR Battery

In a television interview in 1966 he called on the United States to halt its bombing of North Vietnam to concentrate on developing a peace plan "that might conceivably be acceptable to Hanoi." The bombing of North Vietnam, he argued, would never settle the conflict in South Vietnam. "On the contrary," he declared, "bombing creates a sort of David and Goliath complex in any country that has to suffer—as we had to, and as I suspect the Germans had to, in the last war."[16] HP Pavilion DV4-1290EL Battery

Illness and death

On a trip to the United States in 1976–1977 to spend Christmas and New Year with Averell and Pamela Harriman, his health rapidly deteriorated. At his family's request, James Callaghan arranged for an RAF plane that was already in America to divert to Miami to fly him home. The Earl of Avon died from liver cancer inSalisbury on 14 January 1977, at the age of 79. HP Pavilion DV4-1292CM Battery

Born in the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, he thus died in the year of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee. He was survived by Clarissa.[58]

Anthony Eden was buried in St Mary's churchyard[59] at Alvediston, just three miles upstream from 'Rose Bower' at the source of the River Ebble. Eden's papers are housed at the University of Birmingham Special Collections.[60] HP Pavilion DV4-1299EE Battery

Eden's surviving son, Nicholas Eden (1930–1985), known as Viscount Eden until 1977, was also a politician and a minister in the Thatcher government until his premature death from AIDS at the age of 54.

Character and speaking style

Anthony Eden always made a particularly cultured appearance, well-mannered and good-looking. HP Pavilion DV4-1300 CTO Battery

This gave him huge popular support throughout his political life, but some contemporaries felt that he was merely a superficial person lacking any deeper convictions. That view was enforced by his very pragmatic approach to politics.Sir Oswald Mosley, for example, said that he never understood why Eden was so strongly pushed by the Tory party, while he felt that Eden's abilities were very much inferior to those of Harold Macmillan and Oliver Stanley.[61] HP Pavilion DV4-1301TU Battery

Also, Secretary of State Dean Acheson regarded him as a quite old-fashioned amateur in politics typical of the British Establishment.[1] However, recent biographies put more emphasis on Eden's achievements in foreign policy, and perceive him to have held deep convictions regarding world peace and security as well as a strong social conscience.[5] HP Pavilion DV4-1301TX Battery

Eden was for all his abilities not a very effective public speaker. Too often in his career, for instance in the late 1930s, following his resignation fromChamberlain's government, his parliamentary performances disappointed many of his followers. Churchill once even commented on an Eden speech that the latter had used every cliché except "God is love".[21] His inability to express himself clearly is often attributed to shyness and lack of self-confidence. HP Pavilion DV4-1302TU Battery

Eden is known to have been much more direct in meeting with his secretaries and advisors than in Cabinet meetings and public speeches, sometimes tending to become enraged and behaving "like a child",[62] only to regain his temper within a few minutes.[1] HP Pavilion DV4-1302TX Battery

As Secretary of State for War in 1940, Eden authorised the setting-up of the Local Defence Volunteers (soon renamed the Home Guard). In the film of the TV sitcomDad's Army, the (fictional) Walmington-on-Sea platoon is formed in response to Eden's radio broadcast. The debonair Sergeant Wilson takes enormous pride in being often said to resemble Eden. HP Pavilion DV4-1303TX Battery

Eden is mentioned by Ed Norton on The Honeymooners saying that because of the residency requirements that Anthony Eden could never be a member of The Racoon Lodge. HP Pavilion DV4-1303TU Battery

Eden is also mentioned in a song by The Kinks, "She's Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina" from the 1969 album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire).

Eden is mentioned in the 1993 film The Remains of the Day when Anthony Hopkins´s character mentions that Eden has also been a guest at Darlington Hall. HP Pavilion DV4-1304TU Battery

Eden appears as a character in the 2008 play Never So Good—portrayed as a hysterical, pill-addicted wreck, spying on members of his own Cabinet by ordering government chauffeurs to report on their comings and goings. He is shown being overwhelmed by the chaos of the Suez Crisis and eventually forced out of office by hisConservative Party colleagues, at the urging of the American government. HP Pavilion DV4-1304TX Battery

Eden appears as a character in James P. Hogan's science-fiction novel The Proteus Operation.

Antifolk band The Atomic Penguins released a free album download, titled 'Touch My Chin, Anthony Eden'.

The first season of the UK TV series The Hour revolves around the Suez Crisis and the effect of journalism and censorship on public perception of Eden and his government as a metaphor for modern Western military involvement in the Middle East. HP Pavilion DV4-1305TU Battery

Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel,[1] KT, PC (surname pronunciation; DUG-L?SS-hyoom; 2 July 1903 – 9 October 1995), known as The Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963 and as Sir Alec Douglas-Home from 1963 to 1974, was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964.

He is the last member of the House of Lords to be appointed Prime Minister. HP Pavilion DV4-1305TX Battery

In order to become Prime Minister, he chose to disclaim his peerage and contest a by-election to enter the House of Commons. He is also the only Prime Minister to have playedfirst class cricket. He was the first Prime Minister since Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman (1836–1908) not born during the reign of Queen Victoria, and the only Prime Minister born during the reign of King Edward VII. HP Pavilion DV4-1306TU Battery

Douglas-Home was born in Mayfair, Westminster, England, the eldest of seven children born to Charles, Lord Dunglass, (the oldest son of the 12th Earl of Home) and Lady Lilian Lambton, daughter of Frederick Lambton, 4th Earl of Durham. His mother was the great-great-granddaughter of the reforming Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey. After his father's succession to the Earldom in 1918 he held the courtesy title Lord Dunglass. One of his brothers was the dramatist William Douglas-Home. HP Pavilion DV4-1306TX Battery

Education

Church at the University of Oxford, where he graduated with a Third Class Honours BA degree in Modern History in 1925 and later proceeded MA. He was President of Vincent's Club in 1926. At Eton, his contemporaries included Cyril Connolly, who later described him as "a votary of the esoteric Eton religion, the kind of graceful, tolerant, sleepy boy who is showered with all the laurels, who is liked by the masters and admired by the boys without any apparent exertion on his part". HP Pavilion DV4-1307TU Battery

Connolly famously concluded, "in the eighteenth century he would have become Prime Minister before he was 30: as it was he appeared honourably ineligible for the struggle of life".[2]

Douglas-Home was a talented cricketer at school, club and county level, and is the only British prime minister to have playedfirst-class cricket. Amongst other clubs, he represented the MCC, Middlesex CCC and Oxford University Cricket Club at first-class level, playing under the name "Lord Dunglass", his title at the time. HP Pavilion DV4-1307TX Battery

Between 1924 and 1927, Douglas-Home played 10 first-class matches, scoring 147 runs at an average of 16.33 and with a best score of 37 not out. As a right-arm fast-medium bowler he took 12 wickets at an average of 30.25 with a best of 3 for 43. Three of his first-class games were internationals against Argentina on the MCC 'representative' tour of South America in 1926–27.

After Douglas-Home had retired as prime minister, he became president of the MCC in 1966. Between 1977 and 1989 he was Governor of I Zingari, the well-known nomadic cricket team. HP Pavilion DV4-1308TU Battery

HP Pavilion DV4-1308TX Battery

Member of Parliament

Douglas-Home became the Scottish Unionist Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Lanark in 1931. His high birth gave him a head start in Parliament, and he served asParliamentary Private Secretary to Neville Chamberlain from 1937 to 1939, witnessing first-hand the latter's attempts to stave off World War II through negotiation with Adolf Hitler. Douglas-Home fell gravely ill with spinal tuberculosis in 1938, which kept him immobile on his back for two years and prevented him from taking an active part in World War II. HP Pavilion DV4-1309TU Battery

Home lost his parliamentary seat in the Conservatives' landslide defeat in the 1945 general election, but regained it in 1950. He was automatically disqualified from the Commons in 1951, and stepped down as MP, when he inherited his father's seat in the House of Lords, becoming the 14th Earl of Home. HP Pavilion DV4-1309TX Battery

Lord Home, as he then was, served not only as Commonwealth Secretary from 1955 during the time of the Suez Crisis but, from 1957, also as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council (the latter twice; briefly in 1957 and subsequently from 1959). Home traded all three for the Foreign Office in 1960. In 1962, he was created a knight of the Order of the Thistle, the highest Scottish honour and in the personal gift of the Monarch, which entitled him to be styled "Sir" after later disclaiming his earldom. HP Pavilion DV4-1310TU Battery

On 18 October 1963, Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan suddenly resigned following prostate trouble from which he feared he would not recover (though ultimately he lived another 23 years).[3] Macmillan was also facing a serious political crisis over the Profumo Affair, when his Secretary of State for War Sir John Profumo had had to resign shortly before, over allegations of patronizing the prostitute Christine Keeler who had Soviet naval attache / spy Yevgeny Ivanov as another client. HP Pavilion DV4-1310TX Battery

At the time, the Conservative Party had no formal procedure for selecting a leader, merely a series of informal soundings among MPs and senior party figures. Queen Elizabeth II was expected to choose a new Prime Minister on the basis of advice given her by the party's elder statesmen. HP Pavilion DV4-1311TU Battery

Douglas-Home did not originally seek the office of Prime Minister, being apparently quite content to serve in the House of Lords and hold the office of Foreign Secretary. Home was put forth by Macmillan as a compromise candidate and was persuaded to enter the race.[4] Though Rab Butler, effectively the "Deputy Prime Minister" (officially no such constitutional office then existed, with the title on its rare usages being an honorary one), HP Pavilion DV4-1311TX Battery

was the favourite among Conservative MPs, Home was preferred by the elder statesmen, some of whom indicated that they would refuse to serve in Cabinet under Butler or the other potential candidate, Quintin Hogg. Macmillan was apparently determined not to allow Butler to succeed him.[4] HP Pavilion DV4-1312TU Battery

Macmillan's resignation took place at the time of the 1963 Conservative Party Conference, which became something akin to an United States presidential nominating convention, as various candidates and their supporters competed publicly for the position. Following a series of consultations to determine who could command support from across the party and prove the best compromise candidate, Macmillan advised Queen Elizabeth II. HP Pavilion DV4-1312TX Battery

Although it was argued that he had no right to advise the Queen as to whom to invite to kiss hands as Prime Minister, and the Queen was under no obligation to accept his advice, the Queen duly invited the Earl of Home to become Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury. The Queen first invited Home to Buckingham Palace for a meeting and granted him 24 hours to determine whether he could successfully form an administration. Home determined that he could do so.[5] HP Pavilion DV4-1313DX Battery

Douglas-Home believed it would not be practical to serve as Prime Minister from the Lords. It was widely believed that Lord Curzon had not been invited to become prime minister in 1923 because of his seat in the Lords. Using the Peerage Act 1963, which had only been passed earlier in the same year after Tony Benn's campaign to disclaim his peerage, Home disclaimed his Earldom and other peerages on 23 October 1963. HP Pavilion DV4-1313TU Battery

For the next two weeks he belonged to neither House of Parliament, a very unusual occurrence for a sitting Prime Minister. As "Sir Alec Douglas-Home", he contested and won a by-election in the safe seat of Kinross & West Perthshire.

Defeat and opposition

Linked as it was to the damaged former government's Profumo Affair of 1963, Douglas-Home's tenure as prime minister lasted only one year. The October 1964 general election was won by the Labour Party under the new leadership of Harold Wilson. HP Pavilion DV4-1313TX Battery

The margin of victory proved narrow and the election thus provided a much sterner test for Wilson than expected. Indeed it was in this campaign that Home made his most famous remark. Wilson kept telling Douglas-Home that he was not a man of the people, as he was the 14th Earl of Home. Douglas-Home responded, "as far as the 14th Earl is concerned I suppose that Mr. Wilson, when you come to think of it, is the 14th Mr. Wilson".HP Pavilion DV4-1314TU Battery

Home remained leader of the party until his resignation in July of the following year. At this time, Douglas-Home himself revised the rules of the Conservative Party to allow the party leader to be selected by a series of ballots of all Conservative MPs.[6] The resulting leadership election was won by Edward Heath, who defeatedReginald Maudling and Enoch Powell, knowing that another general election was likely to occur soon due to the narrow Labour majority.[7] HP Pavilion DV4-1314TX Battery

Over the following six years, Douglas-Home was notably loyal to Heath, comparing those who questioned his position with impatient gardeners who would keep digging up a tree to gauge its progress by examining its roots.

In 1973, Douglas-Home announced his intention to retire from Parliament and government at the next general election but was overtaken by the calling of a snap general election in February 1974. HP Pavilion DV4-1315TU Battery

Following the defeat of the Heath government by Harold Wilson in 1974, Douglas-Home retired from front-line politics and stood down from the Commons at the October 1974 election.

In the Scottish devolution referendum, 1979, Douglas-Home made a high profile statement arguing that an incoming Conservative Government would introduce a betterScottish Assembly. Douglas-Home had no authority to give such an assurance, and in fact, Margaret Thatcher's government introduced no Assembly at all for Scotland, instead repealing the legislation that resulted from the referendum. HP Pavilion DV4-1315TX Battery

From 1977 to 1980, he chaired the Bilderberg Group meetings, replacing Prince Bernhard.[8]

Douglas-Home was restored to the House of Lords when he accepted a life peerage, becoming known as Baron Home of the Hirsel, of Coldstream in the County of Berwick.[9] The Hirsel was his family seat in Berwickshire, and he continued to appear in the House of Lords into his nineties. HP Pavilion DV4-1316TU Battery

As of 2009, Douglas-Home ranks as thethird-longest-lived British Prime Minister, behind James Callaghan and Harold Macmillan. His autobiography, The Way The Wind Blows, was published in 1976. He was also the author of Peaceful Change (1964) and Border Reflections (1979). His correspondence with his grandson Matthew Darby was published as Letters to a Grandson in 1983. HP Pavilion DV4-1316TX Battery

A plot to kidnap Home in April 1964 was foiled by the Prime Minister himself. Two left-wing students from the University of Aberdeen planned to kidnap him. Home met the two students in public and gave them £1 for a charity in return for not kidnapping him, which he took as a joke. The students followed his car, intending to force it to crash or block it, and then kidnap the Prime Minister. HP Pavilion DV4-1317TU Battery

They lost their nerve and instead went to the house of John and Priscilla Buchan, where Home was staying. He was alone at the time and answered the door, where the students told him that they planned to kidnap him. Home responded, "I suppose you realise if you do, the Conservatives will win the election by 200 or 300." HP Pavilion DV4-1317TX Battery

After packing several things, he offered the kidnappers some beer, which they accepted. Home eventually convinced them to abandon their plot.

Home never publicly spoke of the kidnapping because he did not want to ruin the career of his bodyguard but told the story in 1977 to the former Lord ChancellorQuintin Hogg, who recorded it in his diaries.[13][14] HP Pavilion DV4-1318TU Battery

In July 2009, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a dramatisation of the event entitled The Night They Tried to Kidnap the Prime Minister, written by Martin Jameson and starringTim McInnerny as Home.

Harold WilsonHP Pavilion DV4-1318TX Battery

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British LabourMP and Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning fourgeneral elections, including a minority government after the February 1974 General Election resulted in a hung parliament. He is the most recent British Prime Minister to have served non-consecutive terms. HP Pavilion DV4-1319TU Battery

Harold Wilson first served as Prime Minister in the 1960s, during a period of low unemployment and relative economic prosperity (though also of significant problems with the UK's external balance of payments). His second term in office began in 1974, when a period of economic crisis was beginning to hit most Western countries. On both occasions, economic concerns were to prove a significant constraint on his governments' ambitions. HP Pavilion DV4-1319TX Battery

Wilson's own approach to socialism placed emphasis on efforts to increase opportunity within society, for example through change and expansion within the education system, allied to the technocratic aim of taking better advantage of rapid scientific progress, rather than on the left's traditional goal of promoting wider public ownership of industry. HP Pavilion DV4-1320CA Battery

While he did not challenge the Party constitution's stated dedication to nationalisation head-on, he took little action to pursue it. A member of the Labour Party's "soft left,"[1] Wilson joked about leading a cabinet that was made up mostly of social democrats, comparing himself to a Bolshevik revolutionary presiding over a Tsarist cabinet, but there was arguably little to divide him ideologically from the cabinet majority.[2] HP Pavilion DV4-1320TX Battery

Though generally not at the top of Wilson's personal areas of priority, his first period in office was notable for substantial legal changes in a number of social areas, including the liberalisation of censorship, divorce, homosexuality, immigration and abortion (see Social issues, below), as well as the abolition of capital punishment, due in part to the initiatives of backbench MPs who had the support of Roy Jenkins during his time as Home Secretary. HP Pavilion DV4-1321TX Battery

Overall, Wilson is seen to have managed a number of difficult political issues with considerable tactical skill, including such potentially divisive issues for his party as the role of public ownership, British membership of the European Community, and the Vietnam War, in which he resisted US pressure to involve Britain and send British troops. HP Pavilion DV4-1322TX Battery

Nonetheless, his stated ambition of substantially improving Britain's long-term economic performance remained largely unfulfilled.

Wilson was born in Huddersfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England on 11 March 1916, an almost exact contemporary of his rival, Edward Heath (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005). He came from a political family: HP Pavilion DV4-1322US Battery

his father James Herbert Wilson (December 1882–1971) was a works chemist who had been active in the Liberal Party and then joined the Labour Party. His mother Ethel (née Seddon; 1882–1957) was a schoolteacher prior to her marriage. When Wilson was eight, he visited London and a later-to-be-famous photograph was taken of him standing on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street. HP Pavilion DV4-1323TX Battery

He was a supporter of his hometown football club, Huddersfield Town.[3]

Education

Wilson won a scholarship to attend the local grammar school, Royds Hall Grammar School, Huddersfield. His education was disrupted in October 1930 when he contracted typhoid fever after drinking contaminated milk on a Scouts' outing. HP Pavilion DV4-1324TX Battery

It took him three months to recover. In December 1930, his father, working as an industrial chemist, was made redundant and it took him nearly two years to find work. He moved to Spital on the Wirral, Cheshire in order to do so. Wilson attended the sixth form at the Wirral Grammar School for Boys, where he became Head Boy. HP Pavilion DV4-1325TX Battery

Wilson did well at school and, although he missed getting a scholarship, he obtained an exhibition; which, when topped up by a county grant, enabled him to study Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford, from 1934. At Oxford, Wilson was moderately active in politics as a member of the Liberal Party but was later influenced by G. D. H. Cole to join the Labour Party. HP Pavilion DV4-1326TX Battery

After his first year, he changed his field of study to Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He graduated with "an outstanding first class Bachelor of Arts degree, with alphas on every paper" in the final examinations.[4] A popular urban myth at Oxford University states that Wilson's grade in his final examination was the highest ever recorded up to that date. He also received exceptional testimonials from his tutors, including a comment from one that "he is, far and away, the ablest man I have taught so far".HP Pavilion DV4-1327TX Battery

Although Wilson had two abortive attempts at an All Souls Fellowship, he continued in academia, becoming one of the youngest Oxford University dons of the century at the age of 21. He was a lecturer in Economic History at New College from 1937, and a Research Fellow at University College. HP Pavilion DV4-1328TX Battery

Marriage

On New Year's Day 1940, in the chapel of Mansfield College, Oxford, he married Mary Baldwin who remained his wife until his death. Mary Wilson became a published poet. They had two sons, Robin and Giles (named after Giles Alington); Robin became a Professor of Mathematics, and Giles became a teacher. HP Pavilion DV4-1329TX Battery

Both his sons went to the same independent school, University College School, in Hampstead. In their twenties, his sons were under a kidnap threat from the IRA. After becoming a teacher at a comprehensive school for two years, Giles later returned to teaching, becoming a Maths master at Salisbury Cathedral School, and later, Northcliffe Preparatory School, Nursling, Southampton. In November 2006 it was reported that Giles had given up his teaching job and become a train driver for South West Trains.[5] HP Pavilion DV4-1330TX Battery

On the outbreak of the Second World War, Wilson volunteered for service but was classed as a specialist and moved into the civil service instead. For much of this time, he was a research assistant to William Beveridge, the Master of the College, working on the issues of unemployment and the trade cycle. He later became a statistician and economist for the coal industry. He was Director of Economics and Statistics at the Ministry of Fuel and Power 1943–44, and received an OBE for his services.[6] HP Pavilion DV4-1331TX Battery

He was to remain passionately interested in statistics. As President of the Board of Trade, he was the driving force behind the Statistics of Trade Act 1947, which is still the authority governing most economic statistics in Great Britain. He was instrumental as Prime Minister in appointing Claus Moser as head of the Central Statistical Office, and was president of theRoyal Statistical Society in 1972–73. HP Pavilion DV4-1332TX Battery

As the war drew to an end, he searched for a seat to fight at the impending general election. He was selected for Ormskirk, then held by Stephen King-Hall. Wilson accidentally agreed to be adopted as the candidate immediately rather than delay until the election was called, and was therefore compelled to resign from the Civil Service. HP Pavilion DV4-1365DX Battery

He served as Praelector in Economics at University College between his resignation and his election to the House of Commons. He also used this time to write A New Deal for Coal which used his wartime experience to argue for nationalisation of the coal mines on the grounds of the improved efficiency he predicted would ensue. HP Pavilion DV4-1400 CTO Battery

In the 1945 general election, Wilson won his seat in the Labour landslide. To his surprise, he was immediately appointed to the government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works. Two years later, he became Secretary for Overseas Trade, in which capacity he made several official trips to the Soviet Union to negotiate supply contracts. Conspiracy-minded commentators would later seek to raise suspicions about these trips. HP Pavilion DV4-1404TX Battery

In government

On 29 September 1947, Wilson was appointed President of the Board of Trade and, at 31, became the youngest member of the Cabinet in the 20th century. He took a lead in abolishing some of the wartime rationing, which he referred to as a "bonfire of controls". His role in internal debates during the summer of 1949 over whether or not to devalue sterling, in which he was perceived to have played both sides of the issue, HP Pavilion DV4-1405TX Battery

tarnished his reputation in both political and official circles.[7] In the general election of 1950, his constituency was altered and he was narrowly elected for the new seat of Huyton near Liverpool.

Wilson was becoming known as a left-winger and joined Aneurin Bevan and John 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 the Korean War. HP Pavilion DV4-1406TX Battery

After the Labour Party lost the general election later that year, he was made chairman of Bevan's 'Keep Left' group, but shortly thereafter he distanced himself from Bevan. By coincidence, it was Bevan's further resignation from the Shadow Cabinet in 1954 that put Wilson back on the front bench (as a spokesman, initially, on finance). HP Pavilion DV4-1407TX Battery

Wilson soon proved to be a very effective Shadow Minister. One of his procedural moves caused a delay to the progress of the Government's Finance Bill in 1955,[8]and his speeches as Shadow Chancellor from 1956 were widely praised for their clarity and wit. He coined the term "gnomes of Zurich" to describe Swiss bankers whom he accused of pushing the pound down by speculation. HP Pavilion DV4-1408TX Battery

In the meantime, he conducted an inquiry into the Labour Party's organisation following its defeat in the 1955 general election, which compared the Party organisation to an antiquated "penny farthing" bicycle, and made various recommendations for improvements. Unusually, Wilson combined the job of Chairman of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee with that of Shadow Chancellor from 1959, holding the chairmanship of the PAC from 1959 to 1963. HP Pavilion DV4-1409TX Battery

Wilson steered a course in intra-party matters in the 1950s and early 1960s which left him neither fully accepted and trusted by either the left or the right within the Labour Party. Despite his earlier association with the left-wing Aneurin Bevan, in 1955 he backed Hugh Gaitskell, who was considered the right-of-centre candidate in internal Labour Party terms, HP Pavilion DV4-1413LA Battery

against Bevan for the party leadership[9] He then launched an opportunistic but unsuccessful challenge to Gaitskell in November 1960, in the wake of the Labour Party's 1959 defeat, Gaitskell's controversial attempt to ditch Labour's commitment to nationalisation in the shape of the Party's Clause Four, HP Pavilion DV4-1414LA Battery

and Gaitskell's defeat at the 1960 Party Conference over a motion supporting Britain's unilateral nuclear disarmament. Wilson also challenged for the deputy leadership in 1962 but was defeated by George Brown. Following these challenges, he was moved to the position of Shadow Foreign Secretary. HP Pavilion DV4-1416LA Battery

Hugh Gaitskell died in January 1963, aged 56, after a sudden flare of Lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease, just as the Labour Party had begun to unite and appeared to have a good chance of being elected to government, with the Macmillan government running into trouble. Wilson became the left candidate for the leadership. HP Pavilion DV4-1425LA Battery

He defeated George Brown, who was hampered by a reputation as an erratic figure and who was mistrusted by the likes of Denis Healey (Wilson's predecessor as shadow foreign secretary) and Anthony Crosland, in a straight contest in the second round of balloting, after James Callaghan, who had entered the race as an alternative to Brown, had been eliminated in the first round. HP Pavilion DV4T Battery

Wilson's 1964 election campaign was aided by the Profumo Affair, a 1963 ministerial sex scandal that had mortally wounded the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan and was to taint his successor Sir Alec Douglas-Home, even though Home had not been involved in the scandal. Wilson made capital without getting involved in the less salubrious aspects. HP Pavilion DV4T-1000 CTO Battery

(Asked for a statement on the scandal, he reportedly said "No comment... in glorious Technicolor!"). Home was an aristocrat who had given up his title as Lord Home to sit in the House of Commons. To Wilson's comment that he was the 14th Earl of Home, Home retorted, "I suppose Mr. Wilson is the fourteenth Mr. Wilson".HP Pavilion DV4T-1100 CTO Battery

At the Labour Party's 1963 annual conference, Wilson made possibly his best-remembered speech, on the implications of scientific and technological change,[10] in which 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. HP Pavilion DV4T-1200 CTO Battery

Economic policies

In economic terms, Wilson's first three years in office were dominated by an ultimately doomed effort to stave off the devaluation of the pound. He inherited an unusually large external deficit on the balance of trade. This partly reflected the preceding government's expansive fiscal policy in the run-up to the 1964 election, and the incoming Wilson team tightened the fiscal stance in response. HP Pavilion DV4T-1200SE CTO Battery

Many British economists advocated devaluation, 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".[12] HP Pavilion DV4T-1300 CTO Battery

After a costly battle, market pressures forced the government into devaluation in 1967. Wilson was much criticised for a broadcast in which he assured listeners that the "pound in your pocket" had not lost its value. It was widely forgotten that his next sentence had been "prices will rise". Economic performance did show some improvement after the devaluation, as economists had predicted. HP Pavilion DV4T-1300SE CTO Battery

The devaluation, with accompanying austerity measures, successfully restored the balance of payments to surplus by 1969. This unexpectedly turned into a small deficit again in 1970. The bad figures were announced just before polling in the 1970 general election, and are often cited as one of the reasons for Labour's defeat.[12] HP Pavilion DV4T-1400 CTO Battery

A main theme of Wilson's economic approach was to place enhanced emphasis on "indicative economic planning". He created a new Department of Economic Affairs to generate ambitious targets that were in themselves supposed to help stimulate investment and growth (the government also created a Ministry of Technology (shortened to Mintech) to support the modernisation of industry). HP Pavilion DV4Z Battery

The DEA itself was in part intended to serve as an expansionary counter-weight to what Labour saw as the conservative influence of the Treasury, though the appointment of Wilson's deputy, George Brown, as the Minister in charge of the DEA was something of a two-edged sword, in view of Brown's reputation for erratic conduct; in any case 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. HP Pavilion DV4Z-1000 CTO Battery

Though now out of fashion, the faith in indicative planning as a pathway to growth,[13] embodied in the DEA and Mintech, was at the time by no means confined to the Labour Party – Wilson built on foundations that had been laid by his Conservative predecessors, in the shape, for example, of the National Economic Development Council (known as "Neddy") and its regional counterparts (the "little Neddies").[14] HP Pavilion DV4Z-1100 CTO Battery

Government intervention in industry was greatly enhanced, with the National Economic Development Office greatly strengthened, with the number of “little Neddies” was increased, from eight in 1964 to twenty-one in 1970. The government’s policy of selective economic intervention was later characterised by the establishment of a new super-ministry of technology, under Tony Benn.[15] HP Pavilion DV4Z-1200 CTO Battery

The continued relevance of industrial nationalisation (a centerpiece 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, HP Pavilion DV4 Battery

with a proposal to expunge Clause Four (the public ownership clause) from the party's constitution, but had been forced to climb down. Wilson took a characteristically more subtle approach. He threw the party's left wing a symbolic bone with the renationalisation of the steel industry, but otherwise left Clause Four formally in the constitution but in practice on the shelf.[12] HP Pavilion DV4-1000 Battery

Wilson made periodic attempts to mitigate inflation through wage-price controls, better known in the UK as "prices and incomes policy"[12] (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 the Nixon administration in the United States). Partly as a result of this reliance, the government tended to find itself repeatedly injected into major industrial disputes, HP Pavilion DV4-1000EA Battery

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 the National Union of Seamen, beginning shortly after Wilson's re-election in 1966, and conducted, he claimed, by "politically motivated men".HP Pavilion DV4-1000ET Battery

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) in the UK, which were outlined in a White Paper "In Place of Strife" put forward by the Employment Secretary Barbara Castle. Following a confrontation with the Trades Union Congress, HP Pavilion DV4-1001 Battery

which strongly opposed the proposals, and internal dissent from Home Secretary James Callaghan, the government substantially backed-down from its intentions. Some elements of these changes were subsequently to be revived (in modified form) during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher.[12] HP Pavilion DV4-1001AX Battery

Wilson's administration made a variety of changes to the tax system. Largely under the influence of the Hungarian-born economists Nicholas Kaldor and Thomas Balogh, anidiosyncratic "Selective 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). HP Pavilion DV4-1001TU Battery

The SET did not long survive the return of a Conservative government. Of longer term significance, Capital Gains Tax (CGT) was introduced for the first time in the UK on 6 April 1965.[16] Across his two periods in office, Wilson presided over significant increases in the overall tax burden in the UK. HP Pavilion DV4-1001TX Battery

By 1974, the top-rate of income tax reached its highest rate since the war, 83%. This applied to incomes over £20,000 (£155,247 as of 2012),[17], and combined with a 15%surcharge on 'un-earned' income (investments and dividends) could add to a 98% marginal rate of personal income tax. HP Pavilion DV4-1002 Battery

In 1974, as many as 750,000 people were liable to pay the top-rate of income tax.[18] Labour's identification with high tax rates was to prove one of the issues that helped the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher and John Major dominate British politics during the 1980s and early-to-mid-1990s. HP Pavilion DV4-1002AX Battery

Wilson had entered power at a time when unemployment stood at around 400,000. It still stood 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.[19] HP Pavilion DV4-1002TU Battery

Social issues

A number of liberalising social reforms were passed through parliament during Wilson's first period in government. These included the abolition of capital punishment, decriminalisation of sex between men in private, liberalisation of abortion law and the abolition of theatre censorship. The Divorce Reform Act was passed by parliament in 1969 (and came into effect in 1971). HP Pavilion DV4-1002TX Battery

Such reforms were mostly via private member's bills on 'free votes' in line with established convention, but the large Labour majority after 1966 was undoubtedly more open to such changes than previous parliaments had been. HP Pavilion DV4-1003AX Battery

Wilson personally, coming culturally from a provincial non-conformist background, showed no particular enthusiasm for much of this agenda (which some linked to the "permissive society"),[20] but the reforming climate was especially encouraged by Roy Jenkins during his period at the Home Office. The franchise was also extended with the reduction of the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen in 1969.[21] HP Pavilion DV4-1003TU Battery

Wilson's 1966–70 term witnessed growing public concern over the level of immigration to the United Kingdom. The issue was dramatised at the political level by the famous "Rivers of Blood speech" by the Conservative politician Enoch Powell, warning against the dangers of immigration, which led to Powell's dismissal from the Shadow Cabinet. Wilson's government adopted a two-track approach. HP Pavilion DV4-1003TX Battery

While condemning racial discrimination (and adopting legislation to make it a legal offence), Wilson's Home Secretary James Callaghan introduced significant new restrictions on the right of immigration to the United Kingdom. HP Pavilion DV4-1004AX Battery

Education

Education held special significance for a socialist of Wilson's generation, in view of its role in both opening up opportunities for children from working class backgrounds and enabling the UK 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.[22] HP Pavilion DV4-1004TU Battery

Wilson continued the rapid creation of new universities, in line with the recommendations of the Robbins Report, a bipartisan policy already in train when Labour took power. The economic difficulties of the period deprived the tertiary system of the resources it needed. Nevertheless, university expansion remained a core policy. HP Pavilion DV4-1004TX Battery

One notable effect was the first entry of women into university education in significant numbers. More broadly, higher education overall was significantly expanded, with a distinct bias towards the non-university sector.[23] Some 29 polytechnics were established, whilst student participation rates were increased from 5% to 10.%.[24] HP Pavilion DV4-1005TX Battery

Wilson also deserves credit for grasping the concept of an Open University, to give adults who had missed out on tertiary education a second chance through part-time study and distance learning. His political commitment included assigning implementation responsibility to Baroness Lee, the widow of Aneurin Bevan, the charismatic leader of Labour's left wing whom Wilson had joined in resigning from the Attlee cabinet. HP Pavilion DV4-1006TX Battery

The Open University worked through summer schools, postal tuition and television programmes.[25] By 1981, 45,000 students had received degrees through the Open University.[25] Money was also channelled into local-authority run colleges of education.[15]

Wilson's record on secondary education is, by contrast, highly controversial. A fuller description is in the article Education in England. Two factors played a role. HP Pavilion DV4-1007TX Battery

Following the Education Act 1944 there was disaffection with the tripartite system of academically-oriented Grammar schools for a small proportion of "gifted" children, and Technical and Secondary Modern schools for the majority of children. Pressure grew for the abolition of the selective principle underlying the "eleven plus",HP Pavilion DV4-1008TX Battery

and replacement with Comprehensive schools which would serve the full range of children (see the article Debates on the grammar school). Comprehensive education became Labour Party policy. From 1966 to 1970, the proportion of children in comprehensive schools increased from about 10% to over 30%.[26] HP Pavilion DV4-1009TX Battery

There was also a move in primary schools towards “child-centred” or individual learning, in keeping with the recommendations of the 1967 Plowden Report on improving the education system.[27] Polytechnics were established in 1965 through the amalgamation of existing institutions such as colleges of technology, art, and commerce. A new external examination, designed for children of middling intellectual ability and leading to a Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE), was also introduced that same year.[28] HP Pavilion DV4-1010TX Battery

Labour pressed local authorities to convert grammar schools, many of them cherished local institutions, into comprehensives. Conversion continued on a large scale during the subsequent Conservative Heath administration, although the Secretary of State, Margaret Thatcher, ended the compulsion of local governments to convert. While the proclaimed goal was to level school quality up, HP Pavilion DV4-1011TX Battery

the converse claim was made that the grammar schools' excellence was being sacrificed with little to show in the way of improvement of other schools (for details and sources on this and related arguments, see article on Debates on the grammar school). Critically handicapping implementation, economic austerity meant that schools never received sufficient funding. HP Pavilion DV4-1012TX Battery

A second factor affecting education was change in teacher training, including introduction of "progressive" child-centred methods, abhorred by many established teachers. In parallel, the profession became increasingly politicised. The status of teaching suffered and is still recovering.

Another major controversy of the first Wilson term was the decision that the government could not fulfil its long-held promise to raise the school leaving age to 16, HP Pavilion DV4-1013TX Battery

because of the investment required in infrastructure, such as extra classrooms and teachers. Baroness Lee considered resigning in protest, but narrowly decided against this in the interests of party unity. It was left to Thatcher to carry out the change, during the Heath government. HP Pavilion DV4-1014NR Battery

Overal, 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 thir between 1964 and 1967. 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 working-class children were improved, while overall access to education in 1970 was broader than in 1964.[23] As summarised by Brian Lapping, HP Pavilion DV4-1014TX Battery

“The years 1964–70 were largely taken up with creating extra laces in universities, polytechnics, technical colleges, colleges of education: preparing for the day when a new Act would make it the right of a student, on leaving school, to have a place in an institution of further education.”[15]

In 1966, Wilson was created the first Chancellor of the newly created University of Bradford, a position he held until 1985. HP Pavilion DV4-1015TX Battery

Housing

Housing was an issue the Conservatives were widely recognised to have made their own, after the Churchill government of the early 1950s, with Harold Macmillan as Minister for Housing, gave housing construction far higher political priority than it had received under the Attlee administration (where housing had been attached to the portfolio of Health Minister Aneurin Bevan, whose attention was concentrated on his responsibilities for the National Health Service). HP Pavilion DV4-1015TX Battery

Macmillan had acceptedWinston Churchill's challenge to meet the latter's ambitious public commitment to build 300,000 new homes a year, and achieved the target a year ahead schedule. The First Wilson Government devoted significant attention to efforts at beating the Tories at their own game. Housing construction was markedly increased, though Labour's own specific manifesto commitment to raise construction to a new high of 500,000 new homes a year proved, unlike Churchill's, embarrassingly elusive. HP Pavilion DV4-1016TX Battery

Nonetheless, more new houses were built between 1964 and 1970 than in In parallel, the proportion of council housing rose from 42% to 50% of the total.[29] The number of council homes built increased steadily under the First Wilson Government, from 119,000 in 1964 to 133,000 in 1965 and to 142,000 in 1966. Allowing for demolitions, 1.3 million new homes were built between 1965 and 1970.[25] HP Pavilion DV4-1017TX Battery

To encourage home ownership, the government introduced the Option Mortgage Scheme (1968), which made low-income housebuyers eligible for subsidies (equivalent to tax relief on mortgage interest payments).[30] This scheme had the effect of reducing housing costs for buyers on low incomes.[31] HP Pavilion DV4-1018TX Battery

Significant emphasis was also placed on town planning, with new conservation areas introduced and a new generation of new towns built, notably Milton Keynes – this trend itself a continuation of efforts initiated in the latter years of the preceding Conservative administration. 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 a New Town.[28] HP Pavilion DV4-1019TX Battery

The government also combined its push for the construction of more new housing with encouragement and subsidisation of the renovation of old houses (as an alternative to their destruction and replacement).[32]The Housing Improvement Act of 1969, for example, made it easier to turn old houses into new homes by encouraging rehabilitation and modernisation through increased grants to property owners.[28] HP Pavilion DV4-1020TX Battery

The legislation also introduced special grants for installing amenities in houses in multi-occupation and government grants towards environmental improvement up to an expenditure of £100 per dwelling, while approved works of repair and replacement became eligible for grant aid for the first time ever.[33] Altogether, between 1965 and 1970, over 2 million homes had been constructed (almost half of which were council properties), more than in any other five-year period since 1918.[12] HP Pavilion DV4-1020US Battery

The Protection from Eviction Act (1964) outlawed the eviction of tenants without a court order, while the Rent Act (1965) extended security of tenure, introduced registration of rents, and protection from eviction for private tenants.[34] The Leasehold Reform Act (1967) was passed in order to enable holders of long leases to purchase the freehold of their homes.[29] HP Pavilion DV4-1021TX Battery

This legislation provided about one million leaseholders with the right to purchase the freehold of their homes. Controls were introduced over increases in the rents of council accommodation, a new Rent Act (introduced in 1965) froze the rent for most unfurnished accommodation in the private sector while providing tenants with greater security of tenure and protection against harassment, and a system was introduced whereby independent arbitrators had the power to fix fair rents.[35] HP Pavilion DV4-1024TX Battery

Legislation introduced regulated tenancies for properties with a rateable value of up to £200 per year (£400 in London), which meant that tenants were not only to be protected from intimidation, but that evictions would now require court orders. It also restructured the housing subsidy system such that the borrowing charges of local authorities of individual local authorities would be pegged to 4% interest.[28] HP Pavilion DV4-1025TX Battery

The 1966 Rating Act introduced the rating of empty properties and provided for the payment of rates in instalments. The Local Government Act introduced that same year introduced a “domestic” element in the new Rate Support Grant, by providing relief to domestic ratepayers on a rising scale, so that as local expenditure rose, government grant was geared to outpace it. As noted by one historian, HP Pavilion DV4-1026TX Battery

“The amount of grant in the domestic element would be calculated as sufficient to subsidise domestic ratepayers to the extent of a fivepenny rate in the first year, tenpence in the second, and so on."[36]

The 1965 Housing (Slum Clearance Compensation) Act continued a provision for home owners of unfit dwellings purchased between 1939 and 1955 to be compensated at market values. HP Pavilion DV4-1027TX Battery

The Building Control Act of 1966 introduced building licensing to give priority to housing construction. Under the Supplementary Benefit Act of 1966, an owner occupier on benefits was entitled to an allowance for repairs, insurance, rates, and “reasonable” interest charges on a mortgage.[33] HP Pavilion DV4-1028TX Battery

A Land Commission was also established to purchase land for building and therefore prevent profiteering in land values, although it only had limited success.[29] The aim of the Land Commission was to purchase land for public goods such as housing or shopping redevelopment (compulsorily, if the need arose), and investigated the planning needs of a particular area in conjunction with the Ministry of Housing and some planning authorities to see if any land in any particular area would be needed for such developmental schemes. HP Pavilion DV4-1028US Battery

Although the Land Commission purchased substantial quantities of land, it did not become the dominant influence in the land market that the government had hoped for.[15]

The Housing Subsidies Act (1967) fixed interest rates at 4% for councils borrowing to build homes.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1029TX Battery

It also provided financial assistance to local authorities for conversions and improvements, while also reforming the standard of fitness for human habitation.[34] A Town and Country Planning Act introduced in 1968 provided more local autonomy in town planning.[15] This piece of legislation aimed for greater flexibility and speed in the planning of land use,[37] HP Pavilion DV4-1030EE Battery

and made public participation a statutory requirement in the preparation of development plans.[38] The Act also introduced a new system of process planning under which the spatial distribution of social and economic trends superseded physical standards as the principal concern of planners. According to Maureen Rhoden, this effectively meant that the development control system operated by local authorities ‘policed’ new housing demand. HP Pavilion DV4-1030EI Battery

cThis allowed for new development on infill sites or on the edge of larger towns and villages, “but preventing development in the open countryside and in designated areas such as green belts and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.”[39] In addition, opportunities for public participation in the planning process were also increased by the Act, partly in response to opposition to some features of urban housing and planning policies.[31] HP Pavilion DV4-1030EJ Battery

Social Services and Welfare

Following its victory in the 1964 general election, Wilson's government began to increase social benefits. Prescription charges for medicines were abolished immediately, while pensions were raised to a record 21% of average male industrial wages. In 1966, the system of national assistance (a social assistance scheme for the poor) was overhauled and renamed Supplementary Benefit. HP Pavilion DV4-1030EN Battery

The means test was replaced with a statement of income, and benefit rates for pensioners (the great majority of claimants) were increased, granting them a real gain in income. Before the 1966 election, the widow’s pension was tripled and redundancy payments for laid-off workers were introduced. HP Pavilion DV4-1030TX Battery

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.[32] The widow’s earning rule was abolished.[25] HP Pavilion DV4-1031TX Battery

Social security benefits were markedly increased during Wilson's first two years in office, as characterised by a budget passed in the final quarter of 1964 which raised the standard benefit rates for old age, sickness and invalidity by 18.5%.[40]

Increased funds were allocated to social services during the First Wilson Government's time in office. Between 1963 and 1968, spending on housing increased by 9.6%, social security by 6.6%, health by 6%, and education by 6.9%,[26] HP Pavilion DV4-1032TX Battery

while from 1964 to 1967 social spending increased by 45%.[41] Altogether, from 1964 to 1970, spending on the social services rose from 16% to 23% of national wealth between 1964 and 1970.[2] As noted by the historian Richard Whiting, spending on social services under Wilson rose faster than the growth in GNP, by 65% (excluding housing) as against 37% for GNP, "a substantially better record than that achieved by the preceding Conservative governments.”[42] HP Pavilion DV4-1033TX Battery

In terms of social security, the welfare state was significantly expanded through substantial increases in national insurance benefits (which rose in real terms by 20% from 1964 to 1970)[43] and the creation of new social welfare benefits. Short-term unemployment benefits were increased,[44] while the National Assistance Board was merged with the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance to become the new Ministry of Social Security,[29] HP Pavilion DV4-1034TX Battery

which replaced national assistance with supplementary benefit, improved benefit scale rates, and provided a statutory right to benefit for the out-of-work needy.[45] Although people were kept above a new unofficial poverty line, however, many thousands lived only just above it.[46] HP Pavilion DV4-1035LA Battery

The government also succeeded in persuading people to draw assistance to which they were entitled to but hadn’t claimed before.[47] The number of elderly Britons receiving home helps rose by over 15% from 1964 to 1969, while nearly three times as many meals on wheels were served in 1968 as in 1964.[48] HP Pavilion DV4-1035TX Battery

In 1968, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Security were amalgamated into the Department of Health and Social Security, the purpose of which was to coordinate benefits in cash with benefits in kind since “the services needed to deal with social insecurity are not cash benefits only, but health and welfare as well.”[28] HP Pavilion DV4-1036TX Battery

An Act was passed which replaced National Assistance with Supplementary Benefits. The new Act laid down that people who satisfied its conditions were entitled to these noncontributory benefits. Unlike the National Assistance scheme, which operated like state charity for the worst-off, the new Supplementary Benefits scheme was a right of every citizen who found himself or herself in severe difficulties. HP Pavilion DV4-1037TX Battery

Those persons over the retirement age with no means who were considered to be unable to live on the basic pension (which provided less than what the government deemed as necessary for subsistence) became entitled to a “long term” allowance of an extra few shillings a week. Some simplification of the procedure for claiming benefits was also introduced.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1038TX Battery

The real value of most existing benefits was increased,[35] (such as family allowances, which were substantially raised in 1967 and 1968[49]) with benefits rising at roughly the same rate as salaries over the course of the First Wilson Government, while family allowances were significantly increased.[47] HP Pavilion DV4-1039TX Battery

By 1969, family allowances were worth 72% more in real terms to a low income family with three children than in 1964.[48] In addition, the First Wilson Government kept the old age pension rising roughly as fast as average earnings during its time in office. In addition, campaigns were launched by the government to encourage people to take up means-tested benefits to which they were entitled to.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1040EE Battery

Redundancy payments were introduced in 1965 to lessen the impact of unemployment, earnings-related benefits for unemployment, sickness, industrial injuries and widowhood were introduced in 1966, followed by the replacement of flat-rate family allowances with an earnings-related scheme in 1968.[50] In 1968, the universal family allowance was raised for the first time in a decade. This measure was considered to be redistributive to some degree, HP Pavilion DV4-1040EI Battery

“from richer to poorer and from mainly male taxpayers to mothers who received family allowances, a tentative move towards what Roy Jenkins called ‘civilised selectivity’".[32]

The National Insurance Act of 1966, which introduced supplementary earnings-related benefits for short-term sickness and unemployment, had far-reaching distributional consequences by “guaranteeing that insurance benefits rose at the same rate as wages in the late 1960s.” HP Pavilion DV4-1040TX Battery

Trade unions were supportive of the advances made in social protection by the Wilson government, which had a considerable impact on the living standards of the lowest quintile of the population. A statement by the TUC argued that the unions’ acquiescence to the government’s incomes policy was justified given that “the government had deliberately refrained from attacking the social services."[40] HP Pavilion DV4-1041TX Battery

The introduction of earnings-related unemployment and sickness benefits significantly reduced inequalities between those in work and those who were unemployed. In 1964, the net income received by the average wage earner, when on unemployment or sickness benefit, was only 45% of what he received at work, whereas by 1968 the figure had increased to 75%.[47] The earnings-related supplement for unemployment benefits was made available to those who had earned at least £450 in the previous financial year. HP Pavilion DV4-1042TX Battery

The supplement was paid after a twelve-day waiting period, and the rate was one-third the amount by which the average weekly earnings (up to £30) exceeded £9. The earnings-related supplement was based on the assertion that a person’s commitments for mortgages, rents, and hire purchase agreements were related to their normal earnings and could not be adjusted quickly when experiencing a loss of normal income. HP Pavilion DV4-1043TX Battery

As a result of this supplement, the total benefit of a married man with two children went up by 52%, and that of a single man by 117.% The duration was limited to 26 weeks, while the total benefit was restricted to 85% of average weekly earnings in the preceding financial year.[51]

Personal social services were integrated, expenditure increased and their responsibilities broadened following the enactment of the Children and Young Persons’ Act (1969) and the Local Authority Social Services Act (1970).[52] HP Pavilion DV4-1044TX Battery

The Children and Young Persons Act of 1969 reformed the juvenile court system and extended local authority duties to provide community homes for juvenile offenders.[34] The legislation provided that “remand homes,” “approved schools,” and local authority and voluntary children’s homes became part of a comprehensive system of community homes for all children in care.[28] HP Pavilion DV4-1045TX Battery

This provided that children who got into trouble with the police should more certainly and quickly than ever before receive special educational assistance, social work help or any other form of assistance (financial or otherwise)that the community could provide.[15] In addition, subsidies for farmers were increased, while in the 1970 budget, social security benefits were raised while income tax was abolished for about 1 million of the lowest paid and reduced for a further 600,000 people.[53] HP Pavilion DV4-1046TX Battery

Health

The proportion of GNP spent on the NHS rose from 4.2% in 1964 to about 5% in 1969. This additional expenditure provided for an energetic revival of a policy of building health centres for GPs, extra pay for doctors who served in areas particularly short of them, a significant growth in hospital staffing, and a significant increase in a hospital building programme. Far more money was spent each year on the NHS than under the 1951–64 Conservative governments, HP Pavilion DV4-1047TX Battery

while much more effort was put into modernising and reorganising the health service.[15]

The Doctor’s Charter of 1966 introduced allowances for rent and ancillary staff, significantly increased the pay scales, and changed the structure of payments to reflect “both qualifications of doctors and the form of their practices, i.e. group practice.” HP Pavilion DV4-1048TX Battery

These changes not only led to higher morale, but also resulted in the increased use of ancillary staff and nursing attachments, a growth in the number of health centres and group practices, and a boost in the modernisation of practices in terms of equipment, appointment systems, and buildings.[28] The charter introduced a new system of payment for GPs, with refunds for surgery, HP Pavilion DV4-1049TX Battery

rents, ands rates, to ensure that the costs of improving his surgery did not diminish the doctor’s income, together with allowances for the greater part of ancillary staff costs. In addition, a Royal Commission on medical education was set up, partly to draw up ideas for training GPS (since these doctors, the largest group of all doctors in the country, had previously not received any special training, “merely being those who, at the end of their pre-doctoral courses, did not go on for further training in any speciality).[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1050 Battery

In 1967, local authorities were empowered to provide family planning advice to any who requested it and to provide supplies free of charge.[32] In addition, medical training was expanded following the Todd Report on medical education in 1968.[28][54] In addition, National Health expenditure rose from 4.2% of GNP in 1964 tThe Health Services and Public Health Act 1968 empowered local authorities to maintain workshops for the elderly either directly or via the agency of a voluntary body. A Health Advisory Service was later established to investigate and confront the problems of long-term psychiatric and mentally subnormal hospitals in the wave of numerous scandals.[28] HP Pavilion DV4-1050EL Battery

The Family Planning Act (1967) empowered local authorities to set up a family planning service with free advice and means-tested provision of contraceptive devices while the Clean Air Act (1968) extended powers to combat air pollution.[34]More money was also allocated to hospitals treating the mentally ill.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1050EP Battery

Workers

The Industrial Training Act of 1964 set up an Industrial Training Board to encourage training for people in work.[34] The Docks and Harbours Act (1966) and the Dock Labour Scheme (1967) reorganised the system of employment in the docks in order to put an end to casual employment.[29] Trade unions also benefited from the passage of the Trade Dispute Act in 1965. This restored the legal immunity of trade union officials, thus ensuring that they could no longer be sued for threatening to strike.[27] According to one MP, nurses also benefited from the largest pay rise they had received in ageneration.[55] HP Pavilion DV4-1050ER Battery

The National Insurance Act of 1966 introduced more generous provisions for the assessment of certain types of serious disablement caused by industrial injury.[56] In 1969, the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act was passed, requiring employers to insure their liability to their employees for personal injury, disease or death sustained in their place of work.[57] HP Pavilion DV4-1050TX Battery

The Employer's Liability (Defective Equipment) Act introduced that same year made employers liable for injuries caused to employees by defective equipment.[58]

Wilson's government also ensured that low-income earners improved their position relative to that of average-income earners during its time in office. HP Pavilion DV4-1051 Battery

One of the principles of the government's prices and incomes policy was that low-paid workers would be given special consideration, and between 1965 and 1969 the earnings of the lowest paid workers increased slightly faster than the average (the increase in inflation in 1969–70 caused by devaluation, however, led to a deterioration in the position of low-paid workers). HP Pavilion DV4-1051TX Battery

The Prices and Incomes Board was successful in directing some “above the norm” pay rises to low-paid groups such as local government employees and agricultural workers. However, the large increases in pay given to manual workers in local government in September 1969 (such as street sweepers and dustmen) subsequently set off a spiral of wage demands in industry, HP Pavilion DV4-1052 Battery

which meant that the improvement in the relative position of the local government manual worker was not sustained.[15] In addition, various steps were taken in 1968 to reduce the severity with which the “wage-stop” operated,[47] a regressive mechanism which restricted the amount of assistance payable to an unemployed person.[59] HP Pavilion DV4-1052TX Battery

In 1966, extensions and improvements were made in the allowances payable out of the Industrial Injuries Fund to people who had been injured before 5 July 1948 and who were entitled to weekly payments of worker’s compensation.[60] HP Pavilion DV4-1053 Battery

Transport

The Transport Act (1968) established the principle of government grants for transport authorities if uneconomic passenger services were justified on social grounds. A National Freight Corporation was also established to provide integrated rail freight and road services. Public expenditure on roads steadily increased and stricter safety precautions were introduced, such as the breathalyser test for drunken driving,[22] under the 1967 Road Traffic Act.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1053TX Battery

The Transport Act gave a much needed financial boost to British Railways, treating them like they were a company which had become bankrupt but could now, under new management, carry on debt-free. The act also established a national freight corporation and introduced government subsidy for passenger transport on the same basis as existing subsidies for roads to enable local authorities to improve public transport in their areas.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1054TX Battery

The road building programme was also expanded, with capital expenditure increased to 8% of GDP, “the highest level achieved by any post-war government”.[24]

Regional development

Encouragement of regional development was given increased attention under the First Wilson Government, with the aim of narrowing economic dispratiies between the various regions. A policy was introduced in 1965 whereby any new government organisation should be established outside London and in 1967 the government decided to give preference to development areas. HP Pavilion DV4-1055TX Battery

A few government departments were also moved out of London, with the Royal Mint moved to South Wales, the Giro and Inland Revenue to Bootle, and the Motor Tax Office to Swansea.[47] HP Pavilion DV4-1070EE Battery

A new Special Development Status was also introduced in 1967 to provide even higher levels of assistance.[25] In 1966, five development areas (covering half the population in the UK) were established, while subsidies were provided for employers recruiting new employees in the Development Areas.[12] HP Pavilion DV4-1070 Battery

The Industrial Development Act of 1966 changed the name of Development Districts (parts of the country with higher levels of unemployment than the national average and which governments sought to encourage greater investment in) to Development Areas and increased the percentage of the workforce covered by development schemes from 15% to 20%, which mainly affected rural areas in Scotland and Wales. HP Pavilion DV4-1070EF Battery

Tax allowances were replaced by grants in order to extend coverage to include firms which were not making a profit, and in 1967 a Regional Employment Premium was introduced. Whereas the existing schemes tended to favour capital-intensive projects, this aimed for the first time at increasing employment in depressed areas. Set at £1.50 a man per week and guaranteed for seven years, the Regional Employment Premium subsidised all manufacturing industry (though not services) in Development Areas.[25] HP Pavilion DV4-1070ER Battery

Regional unemployment differentials were narrowed, and spending on regional infrastructure was significantly increased. Between 1965–66 and 1969–70, yearly expenditure on new construction (including power stations, roads, schools, hospitals and housing) rose by 41% in the United Kingdom as a whole. HP Pavilion DV4-1070ES Battery

Subsidies were also provided for various industries (such as shipbuilding in Clydeside), which helped to prevent a number of job losses. It is estimated that, between 1964 and 1970, 45,000 government jobs were created outside London, 21,000 of which were located in the Development Areas.[47] HP Pavilion DV4-1080EI Battery

Funds allocated to regional assistance more than doubled, from £40 million in 1964/65 to £82 million in 1969/70, and from 1964 to 1970, the number of factories completed was 50% higher than from 1960 to 1964, which helped to reduce unemployment in development areas. In 1970, the unemployment rate in development areas was 1.67 times the national average, compared to 2.21 times in 1964. HP Pavilion DV4-1080EO Battery

Although national rates of unemployment were higher in 1970 than in the early 1960s, unemployment rates in the development areas were lower and had not increased for three years.[25] Altogether, the impact of the First Wilson government's regional development policies was such that, according to one historian, the period 1963 to 1970 represented “the most prolonged, most intensive, and most successful attack ever launched on regional problems in Britain.”[12] HP Pavilion DV4-1080ES Battery

Urban renewal

A number of subsidies were allocated to local authorities faced with acute areas of severe poverty (or other social problems).[15] The 1969 Housing Act provided local authorities with the duty of working out what to do about ‘unsatisfactory areas’. Local authorities could declare ‘general improvement areas’ in which they would be able to buy up land and houses, and spend environmental improvement grants. HP Pavilion DV4-1090EO Battery

On the same basis, taking geographical areas of need, a package was developed by the government which resembled a miniature poverty programme.[50] In July 1967, the government decided to pour money into what the Plowden Committee defined as Educational Priority Areas, poverty-stricken areas where children were environmentally deprived. HP Pavilion DV4-1090ES Battery

A number of poor inner-city areas were subsequently granted EPA status (despite concerns that Local Education Authorities would be unable to finance Educational Priority Areas).[27] In addition, Section 11 of the 1966 Local Government Act enabled local authorities to claim grants to recruit additional staff to meet special needs of Commonwealth immigrants.[34] HP Pavilion DV4-1100 Battery

According to Brian Lapping, this was the first step ever taken towards directing help to areas with special needs, “the reversal of the former position under which ministers had passed the burden of social help measures in housing, education and health to local authorities without passing them any money.”[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1100EA Battery

In 1967, Wilson’s government decided to spend £16 million, mainly in “Educational Priority Areas”, over the next two years. After negotiations with teachers’ unions,£400,000 of this money was set aide to pay teachers an additional £75 per annum for working in “schools of exceptional difficulty”, of which 570 schools were designated. The government also sponsored an action research project, an experiment in five of the EPAs to try to devise the most effective ways of involving communities, according to Brian Lapping, HP Pavilion DV4-1101 Battery

"in the work of their schools, compensating the children for the deprivation of their background, seeing whether, in one area pre-school play groups, in another intensive language tuition, in another emphasis on home-school relations, would be most effective."[15]

The First Wilson Government made assistance to deprived urban communities a specific policy of national government in 1969 with the passage of the Local Government Grants (Social Need) Act, HP Pavilion DV4-1101TU Battery

which empowered the Home Secretary to dispense grants to assist local authorities in providing extra help to areas “of special social need.” The Urban Aid Programme was subsequently launched to provide community and family advice centres, centres for the elderly, money for schools and other services,[50] thereby alleviating urban deprivation. In introducing the Urban Aid Programme, the then Home Secretary James Callaghan stated that the goal of the legislation was toHP Pavilion DV4-1101TX Battery

“provide for the care of our citizens who live in the poorest overcrowded parts of our cities and towns. It is intended to arrest ... and reverse the downward spiral which afflicts so many of these areas. There is a deadly quagmire of need and poverty.”[28]

Under the Urban Aid Programme, funds were provided for centres for unattached youngsters, family advice centres, community centres, centres for the elderly, and in one case for an experimental scheme for rehabilitating methylated spirit drinkers.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1102 Battery

Central government paid 75% of the costs of these schemes, which were nominated by local authorities in areas of ‘acute social need'.[50] As a result of this legislation, many ideas were put into practice such as language classes for immigrants, daycentres for the elderly or disabled, day nurseries, adventure playgrounds, and holidays for deprived or handicapped children. The schemes therefore proved successful in making extra social provision while encouraging community development.[28] HP Pavilion DV4-1102TUBattery

Twelve Community Development Projects (CDPs) were set up in areas with high levels of deprivation to encourage self-help and participation by local residents in order to improve their communication and access to local government,[61] together with improving the provision of local services. HP Pavilion DV4-1102TX Battery

In the years that followed, these action-research projects increasingly challenged existing ideas about the causes of inner-city deprivation, arguing that the roots of poverty in such areas could be traced to changes in the political economy of inner-city areas, such as the withdrawal of private capital (as characterised by the decline of manufacturing industries).[62] HP Pavilion DV4-1103TU Battery

The Community Development Projects involved co-operation between specially created local teams of social workers, who were supported by part-timers (such as policemen and youth employment officers). HP Pavilion DV4-1104TU Battery

The task given to these groups (who were watched over by their own action research teams) was to ascertain how much real demand t here was for support from the social services in their areas of choice, based on the theory that workers in social services usually failed to communicate what they had to offer or to make themselves available, thereby resulting in many deprived people failing to acquire the services that they so desperately needed.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1103TX Battery

As noted by Brian Lapping, the Community Development Projects were also designed to test the view that within poor communities local residents could articulate local grievances, get conditions in their areas improved, and provide some kind of political leadership, in a way that the existing political structure had failed to do, “largely because these areas of intense poverty were rarely big enough to be electorally important.” HP Pavilion DV4-1104TX Battery

In assessing the First Wilson Government’s efforts to uplift the poorest members of British society via the establishment of the Community Development Projects and the designation of the Educational Priority Areas, Brian Lapping noted that

“The determination expressed in the diverse policies to give this unfortunate group the help it needed was among the most humane and important initiatives of the 1964-70 government.”[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1105EF Battery

Although the Community Development Projects eventually wound up in the late 1970s, they are still regarded by many today as representing “the high water mark of local involvement in area-based regeneration initiatives,” and helped pave the way for future regeneration schemes in the United Kingdom.[62] HP Pavilion DV4-1105EM Battery

International development

A new Ministry of Overseas Development was established, with its greatest success at the time being the introduction of interest-free loans for the poorest countries.[25] 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.” HP Pavilion DV4-1105TU Battery

Loans were introduced to developing 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 the University of Sussex to devise ways of tackling global socio-economic inequalities. HP Pavilion DV4-1105TX Battery

Overseas aid, however, bore a major brunt of 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.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1106EE Battery

Liberal reforms

The Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Act (1970) made provision for the welfare of children whose parents were about to divorce or be judicially separated, with courts (for instance) granted wide powers to order financial provision for children in the form of maintenance payments made by either parent.[28] HP Pavilion DV4-1106EM Battery

This legislation allowed courts to order provision for either spouse and recognised the contribution to the joint home made during marriage.[34] That same year, partners were given an equal share of household assets following divorce via the Matrimonial Property Act. The Race Relations Act was also extended in 1968 and in 1970 the Equal Pay Actwas passed.[32] HP Pavilion DV4-1106TX Battery

Another important reform, the 1967 Welsh Language Act, granted ‘equal validity’ to the declining Welsh language and encouraged its revival. Government expenditure was also increased on both sport and the arts.[29] HP Pavilion DV4-1108TX Battery

The Commons Registration Act (1965) provided for the registration of all commons and village greens, whilst under the Countryside Act of 1968, local authorities could provide facilities “for enjoyment of such lands to which the public has access”.[28] The Family Provision Act of 1966 amended a series of pre-existing estate laws mainly related to persons who died interstate. HP Pavilion DV4-1107TX Battery

The legislation increased the amount that could be paid of surviving spouses if a will hadn’t been left, and also expanded upon the jurisdiction of county courts, which were given the jurisdiction of high courts under certain circumstances when handling matters of estate. The rights of adopted children were also improved with certain wording changed in the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act of 1938 to bestow opon them the same rights as natural-born children.[63] HP Pavilion DV4-1109TX Battery

In 1968, the Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Act 1948 was updatedto include more categories of childminders.[64] A year later, the Family Law Reform Act was passed, which allowed people born outside marriage to inherit on the intestacy of either parent.[65] In 1967, homosexuality was decriminalised by the passage of the Sexual Offences Act.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1110EO Battery

The Race Relations Act of 1965 outlawed direct discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, and ethnic or national origin in some public places. The legislation also set up a Race Relations Board.[34] A centrally financed network of local officers was provided to smooth inter-racial relations by conciliation, education, and informal pressure, HP Pavilion DV4-1110TX Battery

while a National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants was established (under the chairmanship of the Archbishop of Canterbury) to encourage and help finance staff “for local voluntary, good-neighbour type bodies.” A further Race Relations Act was passed in 1968, which made discrimination in letting or advertising housing illegal, together with discrimination in hiring and promotion. HP Pavilion DV4-1111TX Battery

The legislation also provided a strengthened Race Relations Board with powers to “conciliate” in cases of discrimination, which meant persuading discriminators to stop such acts and, if they refused to stop, legal action could be taken against them as an ultimate sanction. The legislation also replaced the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants with a the Community Relations Commission, a statutory body. HP Pavilion DV4-1112TX Battery

This body was provided with an annual grant (beginning at £300,000) for social work, propaganda, and education as a means of bringing about good race relations.[15] The Criminal Justice Act of 1967 introduced suspended prison sentences and allowed a ten to two majority vote for jury decisions. An Ombudsman (Parliamentary Commissioner) was appointed in 1967 to consider complaints against government departments and to impose remedies, while censorship of plays by the Lord Chamberlain was abolished (1969). In addition, the law on Sunday Observance was relaxed.[34] HP Pavilion DV4-1113TX Battery

From 1966, a circular from several Whitehall ministries was sent to local authorities across the country urging them to provide permanent caravan sites for gypsies. This was followed by The First Wilson Government supported the Caravan Sites Act, introduced by the Liberal MP Eric Lubbock in 1968, obliged local authorities to carry out the recommendations of the 19566 circular. Under the Act, gypsies became entitled to settle in many areas as well as to enjoy regular visiting rights for their caravans in others.[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1114NR Battery

A number of private members’ bills related to consumer affairs, put forward by Co-operative MPs, became law under the First Wilson Government, and much of the consumer legislation taken for granted by contemporary British shoppers can be attributed to the legislation passed during this period. HP Pavilion DV4-1114TX Battery

In 1968, the Trade Descriptions Act (the “shoppers' charter") was enacted by parliament, and a farm and garden chemicals bill also became law that same year. Other co-operative bills enacted during this period included a new Clean Air Act, a bill removing restrictions on off-licences, and a bill to promote agriculture co-operatives passed in 1967, HP Pavilion DV4-1115EF Battery

which established "A scheme administered by a new Central Council for Agriculture and Horticulture Co-operation with a budget to organise and promote co-operation with agriculture and horticulture".[66] The 1970 Chronically Sick & Disabled Persons Act, regarded as a groundbreaking measure, HP Pavilion DV4-1115TX Battery

was the first kind of legislation in the world to recognise and give rights to disabled people, and set down specific provisions to improve access and support for people with disabilities.[67] The government effectively supported the passage of these bills by granting them the necessary parliamentary time. [12] HP Pavilion DV4-1116TX Battery

Record of first term on income distribution

Despite the economic difficulties faced by the First Wilson Government, it succeeded in maintaining low levels of unemployment and inflation during its time in office. Unemployment was kept below 2.7%, and inflation for much of the 1960s remained below 4%. Living standards generally improved, while public spending on housing, social security, transport, research, education and health went up by an average of more than 6% between 1964 and 1970.[68] HP Pavilion DV4-1117CA Battery

The average household grew steadily richer, with the number of cars in the United Kingdom rising from one to every 6.4 persons to one for every five persons in 1968, representing a net increase of three million cars on the road. The rise in the standard of living was also characterised by increased ownership of various consumer durables from 1964 to 1969, as demonstrated by television sets (from 88% to 90%), refrigerators (from 39% to 59%), and washing machines (from 54% to 64%).[15] HP Pavilion DV4-1117TX Battery

By 1970, income in Britain was more equally distributed than in 1964, mainly because of increases in cash benefits, including family allowances.[69]

According to one historian,

The First Wilson Government thus saw the distribution of income became more equal,[23] while reductions in poverty took place.[70] HP Pavilion DV4-1118CA Battery

These achievements were mainly brought about by several increases in social welfare benefits,[71] such as supplementary benefit, pensions and family allowances, the latter of which were doubled between 1964 and 1970 (although most of the increase in family allowances did not come about until 1968). HP Pavilion DV4-1118TX Battery

A new system of rate rebates was introduced, which benefited one million households by the end of the 1960s.[25] Increases in national insurance benefits in 1965, 1967, 1968 and 1969 ensured that those dependant on state benefits saw their disposable incomes rise faster than manual wage earners, while income differentials between lower income and higher income workers were marginally narrowed. HP Pavilion DV4-1119TX Battery

Greater progressivity was introduced in the tax system, with greater emphasis on direct (income-based) as opposed to indirect (typically expenditure-based) taxation as a means of raising revenue, with the amount raised by the former increasing twice as much as that of the latter.[42] In the government’s last budget (introduced in 1970), HP Pavilion DV4-1120BR Battery

two million small taxpayers were exempted from paying any income tax altogether.[72] Also, in spite of an increase in unemployment, the poor improved their share of the national income while that of the rich was slightly reduced.[2]

Between 1964 and 1968, benefits in kind were significantly progressive, in that over the period those in the lower half of the income scale benefited more than those in the upper half. HP Pavilion DV4-1120TX Battery

On average those receiving state benefits benefited more in terms of increases in real disposable income than the average manual worker or salaried employee between 1964 and 1969.[47] From 1964 to 1969, low-wage earners did substantially better than other sections of the population. In 1969, a married couple with two children were 11.5% per cent richer in real terms, while for a couple with three children, HP Pavilion DV4-1120US Battery

the corresponding increase was 14.5%, and for a family with four children, 16.5%.[43] In addition, mainly as a result of big increases in cash benefits, unemployed persons and large families gained more in terms of real disposable income than the rest of the population during Wilson's time in office.[23] HP Pavilion DV4-1121BR Battery

Between 1964 and 1968, cash benefits rose as a percentage of income for all households but more so for poorer than for wealthier households. As noted by the economist Michael Stewart,

“it seems indisputable that the high priority the Labour Government gave to expenditure on education and the health service had a favourable effect on income distribution.”[47] HP Pavilion DV4-1121CA Battery

For a family with two children in the income range £676 to £816 per annum, cash benefits rose from 4% of income in 1964 to 22% in 1968, compared with a change from 1% to 2% for a similar family in the income range £2,122 to £2,566 over the same period. For benefits in kind the changes over the same period for similar families were from 21% to 29% for lower income families and from 9% to 10% for higher income families. HP Pavilion DV4-1121TX Battery

When taking into account all benefits, taxes and Government expenditures on social services, the First Wilson government succeeded in bringing about a reduction in income inequality. As noted by the historian Kenneth O. Morgan,

“In the long term, therefore, fortified by increases in supplementary and other benefits under the Crossman regime in 1968–70, the welfare state had made some impact, almost by inadvertence, on social inequality and the maldistribution of real income”.[73] HP Pavilion DV4-1122TX Battery

Public expenditure as a percentage of GDP rose significantly under the 1964–1970 Labour government, from 34% in 1964–65 to nearly 38% of GDP by 1969–70, whilst expenditure on social services rose from 16% of national income in 1964 to 23% by 1970.[25] These measures had a major impact on the living standards of low-income Britons, with disposable incomes rising faster for low-income groups than for high-income groups during the course of the 1960s. HP Pavilion DV4-1123LA Battery

When measuring disposable income after taxation but including benefits, the total disposable income of those on the highest incomes fell by 33%, whilst the total disposable income of those on the lowest incomes rose by 104%.[25] As noted by one historian,

“the net effect of Labour’s financial policies was indeed to make the rich poorer and the poor richer”.[74] HP Pavilion DV4-1123TX Battery

Europe

Among the more challenging political dilemmas Wilson faced during his two terms in government and his two spells in Opposition before 1964 and between 1970 and 1974 was the issue of British membership of the European Community, the forerunner of the present European Union. An entry attempt had been issued in July 1961 by the Macmillan government, and negotiated by Edward Heath as Lord Privy Seal, but was vetoed in 1963 by French President Charles de Gaulle. HP Pavilion DV4-1123US Battery

The Labour Party in Opposition had been divided on the issue, with former party leader Hugh Gaitskell having come out in 1962 in opposition to Britain joining the Community.[75]

After initially hesitating over the issue, Wilson's Government in May 1967 lodged the UK's second application to join the European Community. Like the first, though, it was vetoed by de Gaulle in November that year.[12] HP Pavilion DV4-1124LA Battery

Following his victory in the 1970 election (and helped by de Gaulle's fall from power in 1969), the new prime minister Edward Heath negotiated Britain’s admission to the EC, alongside Denmark and Ireland in 1973. The Labour Party in opposition continued to be deeply divided on the issue, and risked a major split. HP Pavilion DV4-1124NR Battery

Leading opponents of membership included Richard Crossman, who was for two years (1970–72) the editor of New Statesman, at that time the leading left-of-centre weekly journal, which published many polemics in support of the anti-EC case. Prominent among Labour supporters of membership was Roy Jenkins. HP Pavilion DV4-1124TX Battery

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 then hold a referendum on whether to stay in the EC on the new terms. This was a constitutional procedure without precedent in British history. HP Pavilion DV4-1125BR Battery

Following Wilson's return to power, the renegotiations with Britain's fellow EC members were carried out by Wilson himself in tandem with Foreign Secretary James Callaghan, and they toured the capital cities of Europe meeting their European counterparts (some[who?] commentators have suggested that their co-operation in this exercise may have been the source of a close relationship between the two men which is claimed to have assisted a smooth change-over when Wilson retired from office). HP Pavilion DV4-1125LA Battery

The discussions focused primarily on Britain's net budgetary contribution to the EC. As a small agricultural producer heavily dependent on imports, the UK suffered doubly from the dominance of:

During the renegotiations, other EEC members conceded, as a partial offset, the establishment of a significant European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), from which it was clearly agreed that the UK would be a major net beneficiary.[76] HP Pavilion DV4-1125NR Battery

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.[77] HP Pavilion DV4-1125TX Battery

Asia

Prior United States military involvement in Vietnam intensified following the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. US President Lyndon Johnson brought pressure to bear for at least a token involvement of British military units in the Vietnam War. Wilson consistently avoided any commitment of British forces, HP Pavilion DV4-1126LA Battery

giving as reasons British military commitments to the Malayan Emergency and British co-chairmanship of the 1954 Geneva Conference which agreed the cessation of hostilities and internationally supervised elections in Vietnam.[78] His government offered some rhetorical support for the US position (most prominently in the defence offered by the Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart in a much-publicised "teach-in" or debate on Vietnam). HP Pavilion DV4-1126TX Battery

On at least one occasion the British government made an unsuccessful effort to mediate in the conflict, with Wilson discussing peace proposals with Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. On 28 June 1966 Wilson 'dissociated' his Government from American bombing of the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. HP Pavilion DV4-1127LA Battery

In his memoirs, Wilson writes of "selling LBJ a bum steer", a reference to Johnson's Texas origins, which conjured up images of cattle and cowboys in British minds.[79] Wilson's approach of maintaining close relations with the US while pursuing an independent line on Vietnam has attracted new interest in the light of the different approach taken by the Blair government vis-a-vis Britain's participation in the Iraq War (2003). Wilson's government secretly supported the US invasion of neutral Cambodia on 29 April 1970.[80] HP Pavilion DV4-1127TX Battery

Since World War II, Britain's presence in the Far East had gradually been run down. Former British colonies, whose defence had provided much of the rationale for a British military presence in the region, moved towards independence under British governments of both parties. HP Pavilion DV4-1129LA Battery

Successive UK Governments also became conscious of the cost to the exchequer and the economy of maintaining major forces abroad (in parallel, several schemes to develop strategic weaponry were abandoned on the grounds of cost, for example, theBlue Streak missile and the TSR2 aircraft). HP Pavilion DV4-1128TX Battery

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 presence East of Suez.[81] In July 1967 Defence Secretary Denis Healey announced that Britain would abandon her mainland bases East of Suez by 1977, although airmobile forces would be retained which could if necessary be deployed in the region. HP Pavilion DV4-1129TX Battery

Shortly afterward, 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 the Persian Gulf by the end of 1971.[82] However, Wilson's successor Edward Heath sought to reverse this policy, and British forces remained in Singapore and Malaysia until the mid-1970s. HP Pavilion DV4-1130BR Battery

Whilst widely criticised at the time, over the longer term the decision can be seen as a logical culmination of the withdrawal from Britain's colonial-era political and military commitments in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere that had been underway under British governments of both parties since the Second World War – and of the parallel switch of Britain's emphasis to its European identity. HP Pavilion DV4-1130TX Battery

Wilson was known for his strong pro-Israel views. He was a particular friend of Israeli Premier Golda Meir, though her tenure largely coincided with Wilson’s 1970–1974 hiatus. Another associate was German Chancellor Willy Brandt; all three were members of the Socialist International.[83] HP Pavilion DV4-1131BR Battery

Africa

In 1960, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made his important Wind of Change speech to the Parliament of South Africa in Cape Town. This heralded independence for many British colonies in Africa. The British "retreat from Empire" had made headway by 1964 and was to continue during Wilson’s administration. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland came to present serious problems. HP Pavilion DV4-1131TX Battery

The Federation was set up in 1953, and was an amalgamation of the Protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and the colony of Southern Rhodesia. After struggles for independence, the Federation was dissolved in 1963 and the states of Zambia and Malawi achieved independence. HP Pavilion DV4-1132TX Battery

The colony of Southern Rhodesia, which had been the economic powerhouse of the Federation, was not granted independence, principally because of the regime in power. The colony bordered South Africa to the south and its governance was heavily influenced by the apartheid regime, then headed by Hendrik Verwoerd. HP Pavilion DV4-1133TX Battery

Wilson refused to grant independence to the white minority government headed by Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith which showed little inclination to extend political influence to the native African population, let alone to grant majority rule. HP Pavilion DV4-1134TX Battery

Smith’s defiant response was a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, timed to coincide with Armistice Day at 11.00 am on 11 November 1965, an attempt to garner support in the UK by reminding people of the contribution of the colony to the war effort (Smith himself had been a Spitfire pilot).[12] Smith was personally vilified in the British media.[84] Wilson’s immediate recourse was to the United Nations, HP Pavilion DV4-1135BR Battery

and in 1965, the Security Council imposed sanctions, which were to last until official independence in 1979. This involved British 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 regime). HP Pavilion DV4-1135EE Battery

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 regime by force. Wilson declined to intervene in Rhodesia with military force, believing the UK population would not support such action against their "kith and kin". The two leaders met for discussions aboard British warships, Tiger in 1966 and Fearless in 1968. HP Pavilion DV4-1135EI Battery

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.[79] The matter was still unresolved at the time of Wilson’s resignation in 1976. HP Pavilion DV4-1135TX Battery

Elsewhere in Africa, trouble developed in Nigeria, brought about by the ethnic diversity of the country and the wealth being generated by the nascent oil industry. Wilson's government felt disinclined to interfere in the internal affairs of a fellow Commonwealth nation and supported the government of General Yakubu Gowon during the Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970.[12] HP Pavilion DV4-1136BR Battery

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]

In May 1970, Wilson responded to an apparent recovery in his government's popularity by calling a general election, but, to the surprise of most observers, was defeated at the polls by the Conservatives under Heath. HP Pavilion DV4-1136TX Battery

Wilson survived as leader of the Labour party in opposition. Economic conditions during the 1970s were becoming more difficult for the UK and many other western economies as a result of the ending of the Bretton Woods Agreement and the 1973 oil shock, HP Pavilion DV4-1138TX Battery

and the Heath government in its turn was buffeted by economic adversity and industrial unrest (notably including confrontation with the coalminers which led to the Three-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.[86] HP Pavilion DV4-1137TX Battery

When Labour won more seats (though fewer votes) than the Conservative Party in February 1974 and Heath was unable to persuade the Liberals to form a coalition, Wilson returned to 10 Downing Street on 4 March 1974 as Prime Minister of a minority Labour Government. He gained a three-seat majority in another election later that year, on 10 October 1974. One of the key issues addressed during his second period in office was the referendum on British membership of the EEC (see Europe, above). HP Pavilion DV4-1139TX Battery

The Second Wilson Government implemented a wide-ranging programme of social reform during its two years in office, with spending on education, health, price controls, and housing rents expanded from 1974 to 1976, amongst other reforms.[24] In March 1974, an additional £2 billion were announced for benefits, food subsidies, and housing subsidies, including a record 25% increase in the pension. HP Pavilion DV4-1140EK Battery

Council house rents were also frozen. That same year, national insurance benefits were increased by 13%, which brought pensions as a proportion of average earnings “up to a value equivalent to the previous high, which was reached in 1965 as a result of Labour legislation.” In order to maintain the real value of these benefits in the long term, the government introduced legislation which linked future increases in pensions to higher incomes or wages.[40] HP Pavilion DV4-1140GO Battery

In 1974–75, social spending was increased in real terms by 9%. In 1974, pensions were increased in real terms by 14%, while in early 1975 increases were made in family allowances. There were also significant increases in rate and rent subsidies, together with £500 million worth of food subsidies.[23] Wilson also raised income tax on top earners to 83%, the highest level since the Second World War. HP Pavilion DV4-1140TX Battery

In 1975, a state earnings related pension scheme (SERPS) was introduced. A new pension, which was inflation-proofed and linked to earnings, was added to the basic pension which was to increase in line with earnings for the first time ever. This reform assisted women by the linking of pensions to the ‘twenty best years’ of earnings, and those who worked at home caring for children or others were counted as contributors. HP Pavilion DV4-1141TX Battery

This scheme was eroded by the subsequent Thatcher Government, and insufficient pension rights had been built up by that time to establish resistance to its erosion. The Sex Discrimination Act (1975) gave women the right in principle to equal access to jobs and equal treatment at work with men, while the Employment Protection Act introduced statutory maternity leave.[32] HP Pavilion DV4-1142TX Battery

That same year, the wage stop was finally abolished.[87] In addition, differentials between skilled and unskilled workers were narrowed as a result of egalitarian pay policies involving flat-rate increases.

To help those with disabilities, the government introduced an invalid care allowance, a mobility allowance, a non-contributory invalidity pension for those unable to contribute through national insurance, and other measures. HP Pavilion DV4-1143GO Battery

To combat child poverty, legislation to create a universal Child Benefit was introduced in 1975 (a reform later implemented by the Callaghan Government). To raise the living standards of those dependant on national insurance benefits, the government index-linked short-term benefits to the rate of inflation, while pensions and long-term benefits were tied to increases in prices or earnings, whichever was higher.[88] HP Pavilion DV4-1143TX Battery

Wilson's government came under scrutiny in 1975 for unemployment, with the total number of Britons out of work passing 1,000,000 by April of that year.[89]

The Social Security Pensions Act of 1975 introduced equal treatment in pension schemes and eliminated the contributions test which limited state pensions for women. TheHousing Finance Act(1974) increased aid to local authorities for slum clearance, introduced a system of “fair rents” in public and private sector unfurnished accommodation, and introduced rent rebates for council tenants. HP Pavilion DV4-1144TX Battery

The Housing Act (1974) improved a renovation grants scheme, provided increased levels of aid to housing associations, and extended the role of the Housing Corporation. The Rent Act of 1974extended security of tenure to tenants of furnished properties and allowed access to rent tribunals. The Community Land Act (1975) allowed for the taking into public control of development land, while the Child Benefits Act introduced an extra payment for lone parents.[34] HP Pavilion DV4-1144US Battery

Circular 4/74 (1974) renewed pressure for moves towards comprehensive education (progress of which had stalled under the Heath Government), while the industrial relations legislation passed under Edward Heath was repealed. The Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 set up a Health and Safety Commission and Executive and set up a legal framework for health and safety at work. HP Pavilion DV4-1145BR Battery

The Employment Protection Act of 1975 set up the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Services (ACAS) to arbitrate in industrial disputes, enlarged the rights of employees and trade unions, extended the redundancy payments scheme, and provided redress against unfair dismissal. The legislation also provided for paid maternity leave and outlawed dismissal for pregnancy. HP Pavilion DV4-1145GO Battery

The Social Security Act of 1975 introduced a maternity allowance fund, while the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 set up an Equal Opportunities Commission and outlawed gender discrimination (both indirect and direct).[90] HP Pavilion DV4-1145TX Battery

Northern Ireland

In the late 1960s, Wilson's earlier government had witnessed the outbreak of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. In response to a request from the Stormont government, the government agreed to deploy the British Army in an effort to maintain the peace. HP Pavilion DV4-1146TX Battery

Out of office in the autumn of 1971, Wilson formulated a 16-point, 15 year programme that was designed to pave the way for the unification of Ireland. The proposal was welcomed, in principle, by the Heath government at the time but never put into effect.[91] HP Pavilion DV4-1147CL Battery

In May 1974, when back in office as leader of a minority government, Wilson condemned the Unionist-controlled Ulster Workers' Strike as a "sectarian strike", which was "being done for sectarian purposes having no relation to this century but only to the seventeenth century". He, however, refused to pressure a reluctant British Army to face down the loyalist paramilitaries who were intimidating utility workers. HP Pavilion DV4-1147TX Battery

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 Irelandexecutive. HP Pavilion DV4-1148TX Battery

On 11 September 2008, BBC Radio Four's Document programme claimed to have unearthed a secret plan – codenamed Doomsday – which proposed to cut all constitutional ties with Northern Ireland and transform the province into an independent dominion. Document went on to claim that the Doomsday plan was devised mainly by Wilson and was kept a closely guarded secret. HP Pavilion DV4-1149TX Battery

The plan then allegedly lost momentum, due in part, it was claimed, to warnings made by both the then Foreign Secretary, James Callaghan, and the Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald who admitted the 12,000-strong Irish army would be unable to deal with the ensuring civil war.[92]

In 1975 Wilson secretly offered Libya's Muammar Gaddafi £14 million (£500 million in 2009 values) to stop arming the IRA, but Gaddafi demanded a far greater sum of money.[93][94] This offer did not become publicly known until 2009. HP Pavilion DV4-1150BR Battery

Resignation

On 16 March 1976, Wilson surprised the nation by announcing his resignation as Prime Minister (taking effect on 5 April 1976). 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 (later Lord Stone of Hendon), that he did not intend to serve more than eight or nine years as Prime Minister. HP Pavilion DV4-1150EO Battery

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.[7] Beyond this, by 1976 he might already have been aware of the first stages of early-onset Alzheimer's disease, which was to cause both his formerly excellent memory and his powers of concentration to fail dramatically.[95] HP Pavilion DV4-1150EP Battery

Queen Elizabeth II came to dine at 10 Downing Street to mark his resignation, an honour she has bestowed on only one other Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill.

Wilson's Prime Minister's Resignation Honours included many businessmen and celebrities, along with his political supporters. HP Pavilion DV4-1150ER Battery

His choice of appointments caused lasting damage to his reputation, worsened by the suggestion that the first draft of the list had been written byMarcia Williams on lavender notepaper (it became known as the "Lavender List"). HP Pavilion DV4-1150ES Battery

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."[96] Some of those whom Wilson honoured included Lord Kagan, HP Pavilion DV4-1150TX Battery

the inventor of Gannex, who was eventually imprisoned for fraud, and Sir Eric Miller, who later committed suicide while under police investigation for corruption.

Six candidates stood in the first ballot to replace him, in order of votes they were: Michael Foot, James Callaghan, Roy Jenkins, Tony Benn, HP Pavilion DV4-1151TX Battery

Denis Healey and Anthony Crosland. In the third ballot on 5 April, Callaghan defeated Foot in a parliamentary vote of 176 to 137, thus becoming Wilson's successor as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party, and remained prime minister until May 1979, when Labour lost the general election to the Conservatives and Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first female prime minister. HP Pavilion DV4-1152TX Battery

As Wilson wished to remain an MP after leaving office, he was not immediately given the peerage customarily offered to retired Prime Ministers, but instead was created a Knight of the Garter. On leaving the House of Commons after the 1983 general election he was created Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, after Rievaulx Abbey, in the north of his native Yorkshire. HP Pavilion DV4-1153TX Battery

There is evidence that Wilson was bullied out of office by 'the establishment', security services and military, who are believed to have circulated slurs that he Wilson working as an agent for the Soviet Union's KGB. Several books suggest and document evidence for this including The Pencourt File by Barrie Penrose and Roger Courtiour, Smear!: Wilson and the Secret State by Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsey and The Wilson Plot: HP Pavilion DV4-1154TX Battery

How the Spycatchers and Their American Allies Tried to Overthrow the British Government by David Leigh. To mark the thirtieth anniversary of Wilson's resignation in 2006 documentaries and docudramas which examine this interpretation of events were transmitted on Channel 4 and BBC TV. HP Pavilion DV4-1155SE Battery

Last years and death

Shortly after resigning as Prime Minister Wilson was signed by David 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 show Friday Night, Saturday Morning. He famously floundered in the role, and in 2000, Channel 4 chose it as one of the 100 Moments of TV Hell. Wilson also coined the name of charity War on Want[97] HP Pavilion DV4-1155TX Battery

A life-long Gilbert and Sullivan fan, in 1975, Wilson joined the Board of Trustees of the D'Oyly Carte Trust at the invitation of SirHugh Wontner, who was then the Lord Mayor of London.[98] HP Pavilion DV4-1156TX Battery

At Christmas 1978, Wilson appeared on the Morecambe 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 mis-pronunciation of Morecambe's name made by Ed Sullivan when the pair appeared on his famous American television show). HP Pavilion DV4-1157TX Battery

Wilson was not especially active in the House of Lords, although he did initiate a debate on unemployment in May 1984.[99] His last speech was in a debate on marine pilotage in 1986, when he commented as an elder brother of Trinity House;[100] in the same year, he played himself as Prime Minister in an Anglia Television drama, "Inside Story".[101] HP Pavilion DV4-1158TX Battery

Not long after Wilson's retirement, his mental deterioration from Alzheimer's disease began to be apparent, and he did not appear in public after 1988 when he unveiled the Clement Attlee statue at Limehouse Library on 30 November of that year.[102]

He 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.[103] Wilson died fromcolon cancer and Alzheimer's Disease in May 1995, aged 79. HP Pavilion DV4-1159TX Battery

His memorial service was held in Westminster Abbey on 13 July 1995. It was attended by Prince Charles, former Prime Ministers Edward Heath, James Callaghan and Baroness Thatcher, then Prime Minister John Major and future Prime Minister Tony Blair. Wilson was buried atSt. Mary's Old Church, St. Mary's on the Isles of Scilly on 6 June. His epitaph is Tempus Imperator Rerum (Time the Commander of All Things). HP Pavilion DV4-1160ES Battery

Wilson regarded himself as a "man of the people" and did much to promote this image, contrasting himself with the stereotypical aristocratic conservatives who had preceded him. Features of this portrayal included his working man's Gannex raincoat, his pipe (the British Pipesmokers' Council voted him Pipe Smoker of the Year in 1965 and Pipeman of the Decade in 1976, though in private he smoked cigars), HP Pavilion DV4-1160TX Battery

his love of simple cooking and fondness for popular British relish HP Sauce, and his support for his home town's football team, Huddersfield.[104] He spoke with a studied working class Yorkshire accent, although this was not part of his background, as his father had spoken "upper class" English. Eschewing continental holidays, HP Pavilion DV4-1161TX Battery

he returned every summer with his family to the Isles of Scilly. 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....". These characteristics were exaggerated in Private Eye's satirical column "Mrs Wilson's Diary".HP Pavilion DV4-1162TX Battery

Wilson exhibited his populist touch in June 1965 when he had The Beatles honoured with the award of MBE (such awards are officially bestowed by The Queen but are nominated by the Prime Minister of the day). The award was popular with young people and contributed to a sense that the Prime Minister was "in touch" with the younger generation. HP Pavilion DV4-1163TX Battery

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. HP Pavilion DV4-1164TX Battery

It cemented Wilson's image as a modernistic leader and linked him to the burgeoning pride in the 'New Britain' typified by the Beatles. The Beatles mentioned Wilson rather negatively, naming both him and his opponent Edward Heath in George Harrison's song "Taxman", the opener to 1966's Revolver—recorded and released after the MBEs. HP Pavilion DV4-1165TX Battery

In 1967, Wilson had a different interaction with a musical ensemble. He sued the pop group The Move for libel after the band's manager Tony 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 (later Baroness Falkender). HP Pavilion DV4-1166CA Battery

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 leader Roy Wood) were assigned in perpetuity to a charity of Wilson's choosing. HP Pavilion DV4-1166TX Battery

Wilson coined the term 'Selsdon Man' to refer to the anti-interventionist policies of the Conservative leader Edward 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 as Piltdown Man andSwanscombe Man, was part of a British political tradition of referring to political trends by suffixing 'man'. Another famous quote is "A week is a long time in politics": HP Pavilion DV4-1167TX Battery

this signifies that political fortunes can change extremely rapidly. Other memorable phrases attributed to Wilson include "the white heat of the [technological] revolution." 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. HP Pavilion DV4-1168TX Battery

Reputation

Despite his successes and one-time popularity, Harold Wilson's reputation took a long time to recover from the low ebb reached immediately following his second premiership. Some accuse him of undue deviousness, some claim he did not do enough to modernise the Labour Party's policy positions on issues such as the respective roles of the state and the market or the reform of industrial relations. HP Pavilion DV4-1169TX Battery

This line of argument partly blames Wilson for the civil unrest of the late 1970s (during Britain's Winter of Discontent), and for the electoral success of the Conservative party and its ensuing 18-year rule. His supporters argue that Wilson's skilful management (on issues such as nationalisation, Europe and Vietnam) allowed an otherwise fractious party to stay politically united and govern. This co-existence did not long survive his leadership, and the factionalism that followed contributed greatly to the Labour Party's electoral weakness during the 1980s. HP Pavilion DV4-1180BR Battery

The reinvention of the Labour Party would take the better part of two decades, at the hands of Neil Kinnock, John Smith and – electorally, most conclusively – Tony Blair.

In 1964, when Wilson took office, the mainstream of informed opinion (in all the main political parties, in academia and the media, etc.) HP Pavilion DV4-1190BR Battery

strongly favoured the type of technocratic, "indicative planning" approach that Wilson endeavoured to implement. Radical market-orientated reforms, of the kind eventually adopted by Margaret Thatcher, were in the mid-1960s backed only by a 'fringe' of enthusiasts (such as the leadership of the later-influential Institute of Economic Affairs), HP Pavilion DV4-1190EA Battery

and had almost no representation at senior levels even of the Conservative Party. Fifteen years later, disillusionment with Britain's weak economic performance and troubled industrial relations, combined with active spadework by figures such as Sir Keith Joseph, had helped to make a radical market programme politically feasible for Thatcher (which was in turn to influence the subsequent Labour leadership, especially under Blair). HP Pavilion DV4-1190EJ Battery

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.[105] HP Pavilion DV4-1190EL Battery

MI5 plots?

In 1963, Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn is said to have secretly claimed that Wilson was a KGB agent.[106] The majority of intelligence officers did not believe that Golitsyn was credible in this and various other claims, but a significant number did (most prominently James Jesus Angleton, the Deputy Director of Counter-Intelligence at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)) and factional strife broke out between the two groups. HP Pavilion DV4-1198ER Battery

The book Spycatcher (an exposé of MI5) alleged that 30 MI5 agents then collaborated in an attempt to undermine Wilson. The author Peter Wright (a former member of MI5) later claimed that his ghostwriter had written 30 when he had meant 3.[citation needed] HP Pavilion DV4-1199EA Battery

Several other voices beyond Wright have raised claims of "dirty tricks" on the part of elements within the intelligence services against Wilson while he was in office. In March 1987, James Miller, a former MI5 agent, claimed that MI5 had encouraged the Ulster Workers' Council general strike in 1974 in order to destabilise Wilson's Government. See also: HP Pavilion DV4-1199EE Battery

Walter Walker and David Stirling. In July 1987, Labour MP Ken Livingstone used his maiden 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 the intelligence services (MI5) to undermine Wilson's government.[107] HP Pavilion DV4-1199EF Battery

A BBC programme The Plot Against Harold Wilson, broadcast in 2006, reported that, in tapes recorded soon after his resignation on health grounds, Wilson stated that for eight months of his premiership he didn't "feel he knew what was going on, fully, in security". Wilson alleged two plots, in the late 1960s and mid 1970s respectively. HP Pavilion DV4-1199EO Battery

He said that plans had been hatched to install Lord Mountbatten, Prince Charles's uncle and mentor, as interim Prime Minister (see also Other conspiracy theories, below). He also claimed that ex-military leaders had been building up private armies in anticipation of "wholesale domestic liquidation".HP Pavilion DV4-1199EP Battery

In the documentary some of Wilson's allegations received partial confirmation in interviews with ex-intelligence officers and others, who reported that, on two occasions during Wilson's terms in office, they had talked about a possible coup to take over the government. HP Pavilion DV4-1199ER Battery

On a separate track, elements within MI5 had also, the BBC programme reported, spread "black propaganda" that Wilson and Williams were Soviet agents, and that Wilson was an IRA sympathiser, apparently with the intention of helping the Conservatives win the 1974 election.

In 2009, Defence of the Realm, the authorised history of MI5 by Christopher Andrew, held that while MI5 kept a file on Wilson from 1945, HP Pavilion DV4-1199ES Battery

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.[108]In 2010 newspaper reports made detailed allegations that the bugging of 10 Downing Street had been omitted from the history for "wider public interest reasons". HP Pavilion DV4-1199ET Battery

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 bugs 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.[109] HP Pavilion DV4-1200 CTO Battery

Professor Andrew had previously recorded in the preface of the history that "One significant excision as a result of these requirements (in the chapter on The Wilson Plot) is, I believe, hard to justify" giving credence to these new allegations.[110]

Other conspiracy theoriesHP Pavilion DV4-1200 Battery

Richard Hough, in his 1980 biography of Mountbatten, indicates that Mountbatten was approached during the 1960s in connection with a scheme to install an "emergency government" in place of Wilson's administration. The approach was made by CecilHarmsworth King, the chairman of the International Publishing Corporation (IPC), which published the Daily Mirror newspaper. HP Pavilion DV4-1201AU Battery

Hough bases his account on conversations with the Mirror's long-time editor Hugh Cudlipp, supplemented by the recollections of the scientist Solly Zuckerman and of Mountbatten’s valet, William Evans. HP Pavilion DV4-1201TU Battery

Cudlipp arranged for Mountbatten to meet King on 8 May 1968. King had long yearned to play a more central political role, and had personal grudges against Wilson (including Wilson's refusal to propose King for the hereditary earldom that King coveted). He had already failed in an earlier attempt to replace Wilson with James Callaghan. With Britain's continuing economic difficulties and industrial strife in the 1960s, HP Pavilion DV4-1201TX Battery

King convinced himself that Wilson's government was heading towards collapse. He thought that Mountbatten, as a Royal and a former Chief of the Defence Staff, would command public support as leader of a non-democratic "emergency" government. Mountbatten insisted that his friend, Zuckerman, HP Pavilion DV4-1202AU Battery

be present (Zuckerman says that he was urged to attend by Mountbatten’s son-in-law, Lord Brabourne, who worried King would lead Mountbatten astray). King asked Mountbatten if he would be willing to head an emergency government. Zuckerman said the idea was treason and Mountbatten in turn rebuffed King. He does not appear to have reported the approach to Downing Street. HP Pavilion DV4-1202TU Battery

The question of how serious a threat to democracy may have existed during these years continues to be contentious—a key point at issue being who of any consequence would have been ready to move beyond grumbling about the government (or spreading rumours) to actively taking unconstitutional action. HP Pavilion DV4-1202TX Battery

Cecil King himself was an inveterate schemer but an inept actor on the political stage. Perhaps significantly, when King penned a strongly worded editorial against Wilson for the Daily Mirrortwo days after his abortive meeting with Mountbatten, the unanimous reaction of IPC's directors was to fire him with immediate effect from his position as Chairman. HP Pavilion DV4-1203AU Battery

King's resignation was considered a serious enough matter for the BBC to have senior journalist William Hardcastle announce it in a news flash. More fundamentally,Denis Healey, who served for six years as Wilson's Secretary of State for Defence, has argued that actively serving senior British military officers would not have been prepared to overthrow a constitutionally-elected government. HP Pavilion DV4-1203TU Battery

By the time of his resignation, Wilson's own perceptions of any threat may very well have been exacerbated by the onset of Alzheimer's disease; his inherent tendency to chariness was undoubtedly stoked by some in his inner circle, including Marcia Williams. He reportedly shared with a surprised George H. W. Bush, at the time the Director of the CIA, HP Pavilion DV4-1203TX Battery

his fear that some of the portraits in 10 Downing Street (specifically including Gladstone's portrait in the Cabinet Room) concealed listening devices being used to bug his discussions.[111] Files released on 1 June 2005 show that Wilson was concerned that, while on the Isles of Scilly, he was being monitored by Russian ships disguised as trawlers. MI5 found no evidence of this, but told him not to use a walkie-talkie. HP Pavilion DV4-1204AU Battery

Wilson's Government took strong action against the controversial, self-styled "Church" of Scientology in 1967, banning foreign Scientologists from entering the UK, a prohibition which remained in force until 1980. In response, L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's founder, accused Wilson of being in cahoots with Soviet Russia and an international conspiracy of psychiatrists and financiers. Wilson's Minister of Health, Kenneth Robinson, subsequently won a libel suit against the Scientologists and Hubbard.[112] HP Pavilion DV4-1204TU Battery

Statues and other tributes

Two statues of Harold Wilson stand in prominent places. The first, unveiled by then Prime Minister Tony Blair stands outside Huddersfield railway station in St George's Square, Huddersfield. Costing £70,000, the statue designed by sculptor Ian Walters, is based on photographs taken in 1964 and depicts Lord Wilson in walking pose at the start of his first term as Prime Minister. His wife Mary requested that the eight-foot tall monument did not show Wilson holding his famous pipe as she feared it would make the representation a caricature.[116] HP Pavilion DV4-1204TX Battery

In September 2006, Blair unveiled a second bronze statue of Wilson in his former constituency of Huyton, near Liverpool. The statue was by Liverpool sculptor, Tom Murphy, and Blair paid tribute to Wilson's legacy at the event, including the Open University. He added: "He also brought in a whole new culture, a whole new country. He made the country very, very different". .[117] HP Pavilion DV4-1205AU Battery

Also in 2006, a street on a new housing development in Tividale, West Midlands, was named Wilson Drive in honour of Wilson. Along with neighbouring new development Callaghan drive (named after James 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. HP Pavilion DV4-1205TU Battery