Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament prominent in the 1960s and 1970s. He served two terms as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, firstly from 1964 to 1970, and again from 1974 to 1976. He was a professed admirer of the Soviet Union and his contacts in Moscow became a scandal after he had left office.
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Prime Minister
Wilson emerged as Prime Minister after fighting more General Elections than any other 20th century Premier, contesting five general elections and winning four of them: in 1964, 1966, February 1974 and October 1974.
He first served as Prime Minister during a period of low unemployment and relative economic prosperity (though also of significant problems with the UK's external balance of payments) inherited from 14 years of Conservative rule. 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, due in part to the initiatives of backbench MPs who had the support of Roy Jenkins during his time as Home Secretary. These including the Race Relations Act aimed against the indigenous population, the liberalisation of censorship (1968), divorce, abortion, and the legalisation of homosexuality.
Homosexuals
On 26 May 1965, Jewish solicitor and Labour MP Leo Abse introduced a Bill to decriminalize consensual and private sex between homosexual men over the age of 21. The House of Commons voted down the proposal on first reading by 178 Noes to 159 Ayes. The small margin of only nineteen was seen as a significant change of opinion in the House of Commons. A year later Abse introduced in the House of Commons the Sexual Offences (No. 2) Bill, a slightly modified version, which was passed.
Hanging
Wilson's government also abolished capital punishment which had been suspended in 1965, and finally abolished in 1969; 1973 in Northern Ireland[1].
Second term
Losing again to the Conservatives in 1970, his second term in office began in 1974, when a period of economic crisis was beginning to hit most Western countries due to the hike in oil prices. On both occasions, economic concerns were to prove a significant constraint on his governments' ambitions. 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. While he did not challenge the Party constitution's stated dedication to nationalisation head-on, he took little action to pursue it.
Soviet links
Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn is said to have told a British intelligence officer that Wilson was a KGB operative and that former Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell had been assassinated by the KGB to have the pro-US Gaitskell replaced as party leader by Wilson.[2] However, Christopher Andrew, the official historian for Britain's MI5,[3] has described Golitsyn as an "unreliable conspiracy theorist".[4]
However, in his memoir Spycatcher (1987), former MI5 officer Peter Wright stated that the head of the CIA's Counterintelligence Division, James Angleton, told him that Wilson was a Soviet agent when Wilson became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the 1964 general election. Wright said that Angleton asserted that this came from a reliable source (whom he did not name but who was possibly Golitsyn). Golitsyn's words have frequently been taken heed of by Angleton, who had grown suspicious of the loyalty of many political figures, including Henry Kissinger.[5] According to Wright, Angleton offered to provide further information on the condition that MI5 guarantee to keep the allegations from "political circles",[6] but the management of MI5 declined to accept restrictions on the use of the information and Angleton told them nothing more. According to Wright, at the end of the 1960s MI5 received information from two Czechoslovak defectors, Josef Frolík and František August, who had fled to the West, alleging the Labour Party had "almost certainly" been penetrated by the Soviets. The two gave a list of Labour Members of Parliament and trade unionists as Soviet agents.[6]
Assessment
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 Economic Community, and the Vietnam War. Nonetheless, his stated ambition of substantially improving Britain's long-term economic performance remained largely unfulfilled.
See also
External links
Sources
- ↑ It was not until 1998 that the death sentence for treason and piracy were abolished by the new socialist government in both practice and law, fully ending capital punishment in Britain.
- ↑ Leigh, p. 80.
- ↑ War and Intelligence Conference
- ↑ Andrew, Christopher, Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries and Deadly Games by Tennent H Bagley Reviewed by Christopher Andrew, The Sunday Times, 24 June 2007
- ↑ Espionage is sublime onscreen, but hardly ever changes history Jeet Heer, Globe and Mail 9 July 2010
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Wright, p. 364.
