Word: harold
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Only a few family members and close aides knew that when Prime Minister Harold Wilson climbed into the front of his official black Rover shortly after ten one gray morning early last week, he was on his way to Buckingham Palace to inform the Queen of his intention to resign from office. An hour later, when he broke the news to his Cabinet of his "irrevocable" decision to step down this month, the ministers sat in stunned silence; tears rolled down a few cheeks. So great was the disbelief by the BBC that it delayed telecasting the flash bulletin from...
...Harold Wilson's departure from power closes what historians will probably tag Britain's Wilson Era-a period of painful adjustment to a postEmpire world of narrowing influence and opportunities abroad and unfulfilled expectations at home. As head of government for nearly eight of the past twelve years, Wilson may not have dominated the era, but he was certainly its dominant political figure and symbol, a round, pipe-puffing, wily-some would say shifty-Yorkshireman waging a struggle to hold party and country together...
Intellectual Allure. The son of a Yorkshire chemist, young Harold was probably drawn to Labor more by the intellectual allure of its pre-war Fabianism than by any burning class consciousness. "I haven't read Marx," he admitted. "I got stuck on that footnote on page 2." He joined the civil service in 1940 to aid the war effort, leaving his post as an economics don at Oxford; three years later, at age 27, he became chief economist in the wartime fuel and power ministry. At 29 he won a seat in Commons, where he has remained...
...precipitous decline of the pound highlighted the tensions within the ruling Labor Party. The Conservative opposition combined with rebellious left-wingers to defeat a government White Paper outlining sharp cutbacks in social services-a key part of Prime Minister Harold Wilson's program to slow the inflation that is eroding the pound. As a test of strength, Wilson called for-and won-a vote of confidence. He intends to press ahead with his austerity policy, which has the backing of the trade union leaders. The government seemed, in fact, to welcome the cheapening of the pound as an automatic...
...WHAT IS HAROLD WILSON trying to do? Once again he has demonstrated his ability to surprise and, probably, to outwit the motley crew the British call their politicians. He has announced his intention to resign without calling a general election; the first time a Labour Minister has done...