Joe Haines tells the Times of relationship with Janet Hewlett-Davies before Labour leader resigned from No 10
Harold Wilson confessed to an affair during his final year in Downing Street, one of his closest surviving aides has revealed for the first time.
The former Labour prime minister had a secret affair with Janet Hewlett-Davies, his former deputy press secretary who was 22 years his junior, towards the end of his time in No 10.
Continue reading...A documentary-maker has accused the Cabinet Office of defying the 30-year rule in withholding details of the MI5 exposé
The Cabinet Office has been accused of “delay and deception” over its blocking of the release of files dating back more than three decades that reveal the inside story of the intelligence agent Peter Wright and the Spycatcher affair.
Wright revealed an inside account of how MI5 “bugged and burgled” its way across London in his 1987 autobiography Spycatcher. He died aged 78 in 1995.
Continue reading...It is said of Harold Wilson that he epitomised the quip: “If you can’t ride two horses at the same time, you shouldn’t be in the circus.” He was often criticised for putting pragmatism before principle in his 13 years as Labour leader, but it was an attribute that served him well in preventing the party from tearing itself apart on Europe in the 1970s.
When Wilson won a fourth general election on 10 October 1974, he faced the challenge of navigating Labour’s deep divisions on whether or not to reverse the 1972 decision to join the common market. The party’s election manifesto had promised the British people a “final say” on Britain’s membership without committing itself one way or another to a recommendation. “It is as yet too early to judge the likely results of the tough negotiations which are taking place,” it said.
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