Thursday 3 November 2022

The Prime Ministers Ranked - The Final Four!

 

 

4. Harold Wilson


“Since Harold Wilson’s stock has plummeted so sharply for so long, one can only suppose that it will someday register an upward movement.  It is likely, indeed probable, that historians will take a more charitable and compassionate view of his career and achievements than do commentators who delight in trampling on a man when he is down.”
Kenneth O Morgan, quoted in Reappraising Harold Wilson, Andrew Crines and Kevin Hickson, Fabian Society 7 March 2016

“Wilson’s first administration was one of the great reforming governments in British history. Without the prime minister’s blessing, parliamentary time would never have been found to abolish capital punishment, liberalise the laws on homosexuality, divorce and abortion, or for the first positive action to promote racial equality. We should think of Wilson as the architect of social reform.”
Roy Hattersley, Harold Wilson: The Winner by Nick Thomas-Symonds review – a second look at the victorious Labour leader, The Guardian 10 October 2022

“This is government of the people, it is government for all the people.”
Harold Wilson, Labour Party Conference speech 28 September 1965, quoted in The Times 29 September 1965