Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, was a British politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1976. He was Leader of the Labour Party from 1963 to 1976, Leader of the Opposition twice from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1970 to 1974, and a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1983. Wilson is the only Labour leader to have formed governments following four general elections.
Born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, to a politically active lower middle-class family, Wilson studied philosophy, politics and economics at Jesus College, Oxford. He was later an Economic History lecturer at New College, Oxford, and a research fellow at University College, Oxford. Elected to Parliament in 1945, Wilson was appointed to the Attlee government as a Parliamentary secretary; he became Secretary for Overseas Trade in 1947, and was elevated to the Cabinet shortly thereafter as President of the Board of Trade. Following Labour's defeat at the 1955 election, Wilson joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chancellor, and was moved to the role of Shadow Foreign Secretary in 1961. When Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell died in January 1963, Wilson won the leadership election to replace him, becoming Leader of the Opposition.
Wilson led Labour to a narrow victory at the 1964 election. His first period as prime minister saw a period of low unemployment and economic prosperity; this was however hindered by significant problems with Britain's external balance of payments. His government oversaw significant societal changes, abolishing both capital punishment and theatre censorship, partially decriminalising male homosexuality in England and Wales, relaxing the divorce laws, limiting immigration, outlawing racial discrimination, and liberalising birth control and abortion law. In the midst of this programme, Wilson called a snap election in 1966, which Labour won with a much increased majority. His government armed Nigeria during the Biafran War. In 1969, he sent British troops to Northern Ireland. After unexpectedly losing the 1970 election to Edward Heath's Conservatives, Wilson chose to remain in the Labour leadership, and resumed the role of Leader of the Opposition for four years before leading Labour through the February 1974 election, which resulted in a hung parliament. Wilson was appointed prime minister for a second time; he called a snap election in October 1974, which gave Labour a small majority. During his second term as prime minister, Wilson oversaw the referendum that confirmed the UK's membership of the European Communities. In 1975, his government set up the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention as an attempt to deal with constitutional issues surrounding the status of Northern Ireland. While out of office in late 1971, Wilson had formulated a 15-year programme that was designed to pave the way for the unification of Ireland.
In March 1976, Wilson suddenly resigned as prime minister. He remained in the House of Commons until retiring in 1983 when he was elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Wilson of Rievaulx. While seen by admirers as leading the Labour Party through difficult political issues with considerable skill, Wilson's reputation was low when he left office and is still disputed in historiography. Some scholars praise his unprecedented electoral success for a Labour prime minister and holistic approach to governance, while others criticise his political style and handling of economic issues. Several key issues which he faced while prime minister included the role of public ownership, whether Britain should seek the membership of the European Communities, and British involvement in the Vietnam War. His stated ambitions of substantially improving Britain's long-term economic performance, applying technology more democratically, and reducing inequality were to some extent unfulfilled.
Early life
James Harold Wilson was born on 11 March 1916 at Warneford Road, Cowlersley, in the western suburbs of the mill town of Huddersfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He came from a political family: his father James Herbert Wilson was a works chemist who had been active in the Liberal Party, serving as Winston Churchill's deputy election agent in a 1908 by-election, but later joined the Labour Party. His mother Ethel was a schoolteacher before her marriage; in 1901 her brother Harold Seddon settled in Western Australia and became the 8th President of the Western Australian Legislative Council in 1946. When Wilson was eight, he visited London and a much-reproduced photograph was taken of him standing on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street. At the age of ten, he went with his family to Australia, where he became fascinated with the pomp and glamour of politics. On the way home, he told his mother, "I am going to be prime minister."Education
Wilson won a scholarship to attend Royds Hall Grammar School in Huddersfield, Yorkshire. His father, working as an industrial chemist, was made redundant in December 1930, and it took him nearly two years to find work; he moved to Spital, on the Wirral Peninsula, to do so. Wilson continued his education in the Sixth Form at the Wirral Grammar School for Boys, where he became Head Boy.File:Wilson banner.jpg|upright|thumb|Garter banner of Harold Wilson in the chapel at Jesus College, Oxford, where he studied PPE
Wilson did well at school and, although he missed getting a scholarship, he obtained an exhibition; this, when topped up by a county grant, enabled him to study at Jesus College, Oxford, from 1934. At Oxford, Wilson was moderately active in politics as a member of the Liberal Party but was strongly influenced by G. D. H. Cole. His politics tutor, R. B. McCallum, considered Wilson to be the best student he ever had. He graduated in PPE with "an outstanding first class Bachelor of Arts degree, with alphas on every paper" in the final examinations, and a series of major academic awards. Biographer Roy Jenkins wrote:
Academically his results put him among prime ministers in the category of Peel, Gladstone, Asquith, and no one else. But...he lacked originality. What he was superb at was the quick assimilation of knowledge, combined with an ability to keep it ordered in his mind and to present it lucidly in a form welcome to his examiners.
He continued in academia, becoming a research assistant to William Beveridge in the late-1930s, he also found work lecturing part-time at University College from 1938.
War service
On the outbreak of the Second World War, Wilson volunteered for military service, but was classed as a specialist and moved into the civil service instead. For much of this time, he was a research assistant to William Beveridge, the Master of University College, working on the issues of unemployment and the trade cycle. Wilson later became a statistician and economist for the coal industry. He was Director of Economics and Statistics at the Ministry of Fuel and Power in 1943–44 and was made an OBE for his services.He was to remain passionately interested in statistics, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1943. 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 Britain. He was instrumental as prime minister in appointing Claus Moser as head of the Central Statistical Office, and was president of the Royal Statistical Society between 1972 and 1973.
Member of Parliament (1945–1947)
As the war drew to an end, he searched for a seat to contest at the impending general election. He was selected for the constituency of Ormskirk, then held by Stephen King-Hall. Wilson agreed to be adopted as the candidate immediately rather than delay until the election was called, and was therefore compelled to resign from his position in the Civil Service. He served 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 the nationalisation of the coal mines on the grounds of the improved efficiency he predicted would ensue.In the 1945 general election, Wilson won his seat in the Labour landslide. To his surprise, he was immediately appointed to the government by Prime Minister Clement Attlee 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.
The boundaries of his Ormskirk constituency were significantly altered before the general election of 1950. He stood instead for the new seat of Huyton near Liverpool, and was narrowly elected; he served there for 33 years until 1983.
Cabinet minister, 1947–1951
Bonfire of controls
Wilson was appointed President of the Board of Trade on 29 September 1947, becoming, at the age of 31, the youngest member of a British Cabinet in the 20th century. Initially Wilson favoured a more interventionist policy, seeking requirements for government officials to be seated on private boards of directors, further price controls, and nationalisations of private industries which opposed government policy. However, he abandoned these plans after his colleagues disagreed. He made it a priority to reduce wartime rationing, which he referred to as a "bonfire of controls". Wilson decided that the massive number of wartime controls was slowing the conversion to peacetime prosperity and he was committed to removing them as fast as possible. He ended rationing of potatoes, bread and jam, as well as shoes and some other clothing controls.In November 1948 Wilson's Board of Trade removed the need for over 200,000 licences and permits. By March 1949 he promised to remove the need for another 900,000, although meat remained in short supply and was still rationed, as was petrol. Henry Irvine argues that Wilson's success with the bonfire of controls established his reputation as a modernizing specialist, with both the general public and the political elite. Irving also argues that the selection timing and especially the publicity Wilson devoted to the bonfire represented the emerging skills of a brilliant young politician. While each major bonfire was justified in terms of technical economic advantages, it was selected and publicised widely to reach the largest possible audience so that everybody could understand that their bread and jam became free again.