“go back to the electorate for a mandate giving me full power to handle the crisis”
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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 (MP) from 1945 to 1983. Wilson is the only Labour leader to have formed…
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politics · Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1964–1970, 1974–1976) · politician · Esperantist · statistician · also Harold Wilson, James Harold Wilson, James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, Wilson
Born 11 March 1916 · Died 24 May 1995 · Q128956
91 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 5 entries
“I am delighted that the prime minister has been able to unveil the statue of my husband.”
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The Guardian: Are Manchester United returning to relevance under Michael Carrick? | Jonathan Wilson
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Public attention spiked: 9,188 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.3× the usual 2,774, with 0 article edits.
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Public attention spiked: 14,629 Wikipedia readers in one day, 5.3× the usual 2,774, with 3 article edits. Editors noted: Category order corrections.
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2025· 1 entry
The Guardian: Joe Haines, former press secretary to Harold Wilson, dies aged 97
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2024· 4 entries
The Guardian: Sad last days of Harold Wilson revealed by Cabinet Office archives
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The Guardian: Former PM Harold Wilson sold private papers to help fund his care
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The Guardian: Secret’s out, Harold Wilson had another affair. There’s nothing sweet about that, boys | Catherine Bennett
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Yahoo: Harold Wilson had secret affair in No 10 – and this one wasn’t with his secretary
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2013· 1 entry
The Government of Bangladesh posthumously awarded Wilson with the Friends of Liberation War Honour for highlighting the plight of the people of Bangladesh during the Bangladesh Liberation War
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2010· 1 entry
Newspaper reports made detailed allegations that the Cabinet Office had required that the section on bugging of 10 Downing Street be omitted from the history for "wider public interest reasons"
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2009· 1 entry
The Defence of the Realm held that while MI5 kept a file on Wilson from 1945 when he became an MP—because communist civil servants claimed that he had similar political sympathies—there was no bugging of his home or offi
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2006· 1 entry
A street on a new housing development in Tividale, West Midlands, was named Wilson Drive in honour of Wilson
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2000· 1 entry
Channel 4 chose one of his appearances as one of the "100 Moments of TV Hell"
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1995· 12 entries
Died 1995-05-24.
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“We have taken steps which have not been taken by any other democratic government in the world. We are taking steps with regard to prices and wages which no other government, even in wartime, has taken.”
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“Let us not be afraid to express the passionate concern everyone of us feels about present housing conditions. ... This is a problem which brooks no escape, no evasion. It is no use talking about a free market: the provision of decent housing for all is a clear and inescapable obligation of government.”
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“This odious doctrine of apartheid at 11-plus. ... We reject it because as a nation we cannot afford artificially to segregate three-quarters of our children, and virtually cut them off from the normal chance of higher education.”
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“This party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.”
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“A week is a long time in politics.”
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“We cannot accept that this is a little local matter within the control of South Africa's internal affairs. Oppression, apartheid, and racialism—those are crimes against humanity as a whole.”
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“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”
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“The greatest enemy that lies in our path in creating the kind of Britain we want to create is conservatism in all its forms. We cannot afford Tory conservatism, with its smug preoccupation, complacently looking on while the rest of the world passes us by.”
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“We have not been pushed around either abroad or at home and we are not going to be. This is government of the people; it is government for all the people, and the accent is on government.”
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“Britain's frontiers are on the Himalayas”
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“The Smethwick Conservatives can have the satisfaction of having topped the poll, and of having sent here as their Member one who, until a further General Election restores him to oblivion, will serve his term here as a Parliamentary leper”
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1991· 1 entry
That anonymous donors would provide funds so that the Bodleian Library at Oxford could buy Wilson's papers in order to keep them in the United Kingdom while also allowing the proceeds to set up a trust fund for Wilson an
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1986· 1 entry
When he commented as an elder brother of Trinity House
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1983· 1 entry
When he was elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Wilson of Rievaulx
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1979· 2 entries
Career landmark: member of the 48th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1979–1983).
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In which he was returned as a backbench MP for Huyton
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1976· 1 entry
To chair the Committee to Review the Functioning of Financial Institutions (the Wilson Committee) which reported in June 1980
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1975· 4 entries
Wilson secretly offered Libya's dictator Muammar Gaddafi £14 million to stop arming the Provisional Irish Republican Army, but Gaddafi demanded a far greater sum of money
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“I do not want to anticipate the results of the forthcoming talks, which we shall enter into in a truly constructive spirit, but it might be helpful nevertheless to mention two questions of particular importance to us.”
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And was intended to channel public investment into industry, in return for taking a holding of equity in private companies
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Wilson joined the Board of Trustees of the D'Oyly Carte Trust at the invitation of Sir Hugh Wontner, who was then the Lord Mayor of London
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1974· 10 entries
Awarded honorary doctorate presented by The Open University (1974).
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Awarded Financial Times Person of the Year (1974).
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Career landmark: member of the 47th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1974–1979).
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Career landmark: member of the 46th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1974–1974).
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That "I have been around this racetrack so often that I cannot generate any more enthusiasm for jumping any more hurdles
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Wilson found that the situation had rapidly deteriorated, with the Unionist Ulster Worker's Council calling for the Protestant workforce to go on strike, essentially bringing the whole of Northern Ireland to a halt
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Career landmark: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1974–1976).
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Wilson became the victim of a personation fraud
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The British Army occupied Heathrow Airport on the grounds of training for possible IRA terrorist action at the airport
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As many as 750,000 people were liable to pay the top rate of income tax
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1970· 2 entries
Career landmark: Leader of the Opposition (1970–1974).
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Career landmark: member of the 45th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1970–1974).
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1969· 3 entries
Under Statute 12 of the Society's regulations, which covers people who have rendered conspicuous service to the cause of science or are such that their election would be of signal benefit to the Society
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Proposed a series of changes to the legal basis for industrial relations (labour law), which were outlined in a White Paper "In Place of Strife" put forward by the Employment Secretary Barbara Castle
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Which contributed to further escalation of the Troubles
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1968· 3 entries
And the number of teachers in training increased by more than a third between 1964 and 1967
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Wilson's first government reluctantly decided it could not fulfil its long-held promise to raise the school leaving age to 16, because budget cuts left it unable to fulfil the investment required in infrastructure, such
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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
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1967· 3 entries
New tax concessions were introduced for widows
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Wilson had a different interaction with a musical ensemble
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“This does not mean that the pound here in Britain—in your pocket or purse—is worth any less”
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1966· 2 entries
Career landmark: member of the 44th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1966–1970).
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And conducted, he claimed, by "politically motivated men"
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1965· 3 entries
And Pipeman of the Decade in 1976, though in private he preferred cigars), his love of simple cooking and fondness for the popular British relish HP Sauce, and his support for his home town's football team, Huddersfield
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The regressive allowance for national insurance contributions was abolished and the single personal allowance, marriage allowance and wife's earned income relief were increased
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The Security Council imposed sanctions, which were to last until official independence in 1979
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1964· 3 entries
Career landmark: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1964–1970).
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And depicts Wilson in walking pose at the start of his first term as prime minister
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Career landmark: member of the 43rd Parliament of the United Kingdom (1964–1966).
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1963· 4 entries
On Macmillan's orders following the Profumo affair, MI5 bugged the Cabinet room, the waiting room, and the prime minister's study until the devices were removed in 1977 on Callaghan's orders
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Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn is said to have secretly claimed that Wilson was a KGB agent
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Career landmark: Leader of the Labour Party (1963–1976).
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Career landmark: Leader of the Opposition (1963–1964).
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1962· 1 entry
In opposition to Britain joining the European Economic Community
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1961· 2 entries
Before he challenged for the deputy leadership in 1962 but was defeated by George Brown
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Career landmark: Shadow Foreign Secretary (1961–1963).
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1960· 2 entries
For the leadership, and George Brown in 1962 for the deputy leadership
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To tackle the controversy head-on, with a proposal to expunge Clause Four (the public ownership clause) from the party's constitution, but had been forced to climb down
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1959· 1 entry
Career landmark: member of the 42nd Parliament of the United Kingdom (1959–1964).
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1955· 4 entries
Career landmark: member of the 41st Parliament of the United Kingdom (1955–1959).
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And his speeches as Shadow Chancellor from 1956 were widely praised for their clarity and wit
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Backed Hugh Gaitskell, the right-wing candidate in internal Labour Party terms, against Bevan for the party leadership election
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Career landmark: Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (1955–1961).
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1951· 1 entry
Career landmark: member of the 40th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1951–1955).
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1950· 1 entry
Career landmark: member of the 39th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1950–1951).
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1949· 1 entry
Would become tagged as "the party of devaluation"
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1947· 2 entries
Career landmark: Secretary for Overseas Trade (1947–1947).
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Career landmark: President of the Board of Trade (1947–1951).
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1945· 3 entries
Career landmark: member of the 38th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1945–1950).
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“You need men with fire in their bellies and humanity in their hearts. The choice we offer, starting today, is between standing still, of clinging to the tired philosophy of a day that is gone, or moving forward in partnership and unity to a just society, to a dynamic, expanding, confident and above all purposive new Britain. ... The spirit of 1945 is in the air again.”
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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
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1921· 1 entry
Harold Wilson's Labour government preferred not to intervene in the affairs of Northern Ireland
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1916· 1 entry
Born 1916-03-11.
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1901· 1 entry
Her brother Harold Seddon settled in Western Australia and became the 8th President of the Western Australian Legislative Council in 1946
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