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#haroldwilson — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #haroldwilson, aggregated by home.social.

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  1. AP Was There: 1975 summit at French castle plants seed for future G7 club of wealthy nations

    EDITOR’S NOTE: When U.S. President Gerald Ford and leaders of five other leading democracies gathered for talks at…
    #UnitedKingdom #UK #Europe #EU #AldoMoro #ArthurL.Gavshon #GeraldFord #GreatBritain #HaroldWilson #HelmutSchmidt #HenryKissinger #RonNessen #TakeoMiki #ValeryGiscardd'Estaing #WorldNews
    europesays.com/3059832/

  2. Just finished (re-)reading The History of the #Runestaff by #MichaelMoorcock

    I love his 1960s British pop-culture references, but I don't get all of them:

    • Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl, Rhunga are the #Beatles
    • Chirshil is #Churchill
    • Bjrin Adass — #BrianAldiss ? Why is he the Singing God?
    • Jeajee Blad — #JGBallard
    • Jh'Im Slas — Jim ??
    • Aral Vilsn — #HaroldWilson

    Wilson is father of Squeeze(?) and Balance of Credit. I need to look up the specific events of c.1968 to see what he's referring to.

  3. Just finished (re-)reading The History of the #Runestaff by #MichaelMoorcock

    I love his 1960s British pop-culture references, but I don't get all of them:

    • Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl, Rhunga are the #Beatles
    • Chirshil is #Churchill
    • Bjrin Adass — #BrianAdliss ? Why is he the Singing God?
    • Jeajee Blad — #JGBallard
    • Jh'Im Slas — Jim ??
    • Aral Vilsn — #HaroldWilson

    Wilson is father of Squeeze(?) and Balance of Credit. I need to look up the specific events of c.1968 to see what he's referring to.

  4. Just finished (re-)reading The History of the #Runestaff by #MichaelMoorcock

    I love his 1960s British pop-culture references, but I don't get all of them:

    • Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl, Rhunga are the #Beatles
    • Chirshil is #Churchill
    • Bjrin Adass — #BrianAldiss ? Why is he the Singing God?
    • Jeajee Blad — #JGBallard
    • Jh'Im Slas — Jim ??
    • Aral Vilsn — #HaroldWilson

    Wilson is father of Squeeze(?) and Balance of Credit. I need to look up the specific events of c.1968 to see what he's referring to.

  5. Just finished (re-)reading The History of the #Runestaff by #MichaelMoorcock

    I love his 1960s British pop-culture references, but I don't get all of them:

    • Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl, Rhunga are the #Beatles
    • Chirshil is #Churchill
    • Bjrin Adass — #BrianAldiss ? Why is he the Singing God?
    • Jeajee Blad — #JGBallard
    • Jh'Im Slas — Jim ??
    • Aral Vilsn — #HaroldWilson

    Wilson is father of Squeeze(?) and Balance of Credit. I need to look up the specific events of c.1968 to see what he's referring to.

  6. Just finished (re-)reading The History of the #Runestaff by #MichaelMoorcock

    I love his 1960s British pop-culture references, but I don't get all of them:

    • Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl, Rhunga are the #Beatles
    • Chirshil is #Churchill
    • Bjrin Adass — #BrianAldiss ? Why is he the Singing God?
    • Jeajee Blad — #JGBallard
    • Jh'Im Slas — Jim ??
    • Aral Vilsn — #HaroldWilson

    Wilson is father of Squeeze(?) and Balance of Credit. I need to look up the specific events of c.1968 to see what he's referring to.

  7. Though #HaroldWilson’s government rejected US requests to send British troops to Vietnam, Britain did not stay out of the war.

    🔓 This archive article is free for 7 days

    historytoday.com/archive/histo

  8. Though #HaroldWilson’s government rejected US requests to send British troops to Vietnam, Britain did not stay out of the war.

    🔓 This archive article is free for 7 days

    historytoday.com/archive/histo

  9. Though #HaroldWilson’s government rejected US requests to send British troops to Vietnam, Britain did not stay out of the war.

    🔓 This archive article is free for 7 days

    historytoday.com/archive/histo

  10. Though #HaroldWilson’s government rejected US requests to send British troops to Vietnam, Britain did not stay out of the war.

    🔓 This archive article is free for 7 days

    historytoday.com/archive/histo

  11. Though #HaroldWilson’s government rejected US requests to send British troops to Vietnam, Britain did not stay out of the war.

    🔓 This archive article is free for 7 days

    historytoday.com/archive/histo

  12. I was tempted to post a simple "Ignore Tony, follow Harold!" message to Starmer, but as this article suggests, Wilson's "keeping the UK out of Vietnam" story is not quite that straightforward.

    historytoday.com/archive/brita

    #Iran #USUKRealtions #VietnamWar #HaroldWilson #SpecialRelationship #LBJ #LyndonBainesJohnson

  13. I was tempted to post a simple "Ignore Tony, follow Harold!" message to Starmer, but as this article suggests, Wilson's "keeping the UK out of Vietnam" story is not quite that straightforward.

    historytoday.com/archive/brita

    #Iran #USUKRealtions #VietnamWar #HaroldWilson #SpecialRelationship #LBJ #LyndonBainesJohnson

  14. I was tempted to post a simple "Ignore Tony, follow Harold!" message to Starmer, but as this article suggests, Wilson's "keeping the UK out of Vietnam" story is not quite that straightforward.

    historytoday.com/archive/brita

    #Iran #USUKRealtions #VietnamWar #HaroldWilson #SpecialRelationship #LBJ #LyndonBainesJohnson

  15. I was tempted to post a simple "Ignore Tony, follow Harold!" message to Starmer, but as this article suggests, Wilson's "keeping the UK out of Vietnam" story is not quite that straightforward.

    historytoday.com/archive/brita

    #Iran #USUKRealtions #VietnamWar #HaroldWilson #SpecialRelationship #LBJ #LyndonBainesJohnson

  16. I was tempted to post a simple "Ignore Tony, follow Harold!" message to Starmer, but as this article suggests, Wilson's "keeping the UK out of Vietnam" story is not quite that straightforward.

    historytoday.com/archive/brita

    #Iran #USUKRealtions #VietnamWar #HaroldWilson #SpecialRelationship #LBJ #LyndonBainesJohnson

  17. "Taxman" is a song by the English rock band #theBeatles from their 1966 album #Revolver. Written by the group's lead guitarist, #GeorgeHarrison, with some lyrical assistance from #JohnLennon, it protests against the higher level of #progressiveTax imposed in the United Kingdom by the #Labour government of #HaroldWilson, which saw the Beatles paying over 90 per cent of their earnings to the #Treasury. The song was selected as the album's opening track.
    youtube.com/watch?v=Oyu5sFzWLk8

  18. "Taxman" is a song by the English rock band #theBeatles from their 1966 album #Revolver. Written by the group's lead guitarist, #GeorgeHarrison, with some lyrical assistance from #JohnLennon, it protests against the higher level of #progressiveTax imposed in the United Kingdom by the #Labour government of #HaroldWilson, which saw the Beatles paying over 90 per cent of their earnings to the #Treasury. The song was selected as the album's opening track.
    youtube.com/watch?v=Oyu5sFzWLk8

  19. "Taxman" is a song by the English rock band #theBeatles from their 1966 album #Revolver. Written by the group's lead guitarist, #GeorgeHarrison, with some lyrical assistance from #JohnLennon, it protests against the higher level of #progressiveTax imposed in the United Kingdom by the #Labour government of #HaroldWilson, which saw the Beatles paying over 90 per cent of their earnings to the #Treasury. The song was selected as the album's opening track.
    youtube.com/watch?v=Oyu5sFzWLk8

  20. "Taxman" is a song by the English rock band #theBeatles from their 1966 album #Revolver. Written by the group's lead guitarist, #GeorgeHarrison, with some lyrical assistance from #JohnLennon, it protests against the higher level of #progressiveTax imposed in the United Kingdom by the #Labour government of #HaroldWilson, which saw the Beatles paying over 90 per cent of their earnings to the #Treasury. The song was selected as the album's opening track.
    youtube.com/watch?v=Oyu5sFzWLk8

  21. "Taxman" is a song by the English rock band #theBeatles from their 1966 album #Revolver. Written by the group's lead guitarist, #GeorgeHarrison, with some lyrical assistance from #JohnLennon, it protests against the higher level of #progressiveTax imposed in the United Kingdom by the #Labour government of #HaroldWilson, which saw the Beatles paying over 90 per cent of their earnings to the #Treasury. The song was selected as the album's opening track.
    youtube.com/watch?v=Oyu5sFzWLk8

  22. I Blame Harold Wilson

    This is an opinion piece (an op-ed if you will) which I’ve been thinking about for a long, long time.

    Back in 2014 Roy Hattersley wrote in the Guardian

    [In 1964] Harold Wilson was elected prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Labour won because its leader caught the mood of the time. Wilson was the politician as technocrat, the man in the Gannex overcoat who complained that, in a world in which “even the MCC has abolished the distinction between amateurs and professionals, in science and industry we are content to remain a nation of Gentlemen in a world of Players”.

    Maintaining the technocratic image helped him to keep a fractious party more or less intact. But nobody doubted that the pragmatism about which he boasted was, in truth, guided by a principle which he set out in the language of the time. “The Labour party is a moral crusade or it is nothing.”

    Two or three weeks into the new parliament, he invited the dozen or so youngest Labour MPs to Downing Street. The most self-confident […] told him that the government had made a crucial mistake in not devaluing the pound. They were right …

    Harold Wilson brought a paradigm shift to government in the UK, and to the functioning of society as it finally surfaced from the deprivations of WW2. Wilson took advantage of the changing mood of the times. As a consequence many attitudes in the UK, and thinking within government – not to say many of the current problems which afflict the country – have their roots in the actions of the Wilson administrations of 1960s and 1970s.

    Think about the following …

    Comprehensive Schools
    Wilson said he wanted everyone to have his grammar school education and in an attempt to achieve this effectively all schools became comprehensive. But the law of unintended consequences meant what happened was that by mixing the bright with the dim, the brightest got dumbed down, given no incentive to work hard and be stretched, while the less bright gained nothing. Actually the less bright also lost out because the previous secondary modern schools had never been properly constituted (with good curricula) and consequently the change of focus meant there was no foundation to fall back on.

    Expansion of the Universities
    To be fair this was started under Harold Macmillan, but the expansion of the mid-60s was the first step on the slippery slope to the destruction of Technical Colleges, Polytechnics and apprenticeships. This has, in turn, led to a shortage of technical training for plumbers, bricklayers etc. – we didn’t need them: Wilson’s “white heat of technology” would do it all. But we do need them and so we have ended up importing them from places like Eastern Europe.

    Another consequence is that we now have too many, low quality, universities running courses of little worth and awarding over-inflated degrees. Why? Because over time everyone has become entitled to a university education – and government wanted to keep the unemployment figures down. Not a direct result of Wilson, but built upon the foundations he laid.

    Soundbite Government
    Wilson was the first to blatantly use the media as a tool of government and to provide snappy soundbites. Remember “the pound in your pocket”, “the white heat of technology”, and “beer and sandwiches at No.10” to win over stroppy union leaders?

    Media Freedom
    It isn’t clear which is chicken and which is egg, but with soundbite government the media started to feel they had much more freedom and fewer constraints, and they became more available with the advent of regular TV news bulletins. News became more immediate; and the public started to see, and recognise, politicians when previously they had little inkling of the machinations of government, who those people were, and what they did. This inevitably (over time) led to the broadcasting of Parliament, with politicians being interviewed at every turn – and spinning every story for their benefit.

    Government and Industry
    The beginning of politicians and government obviously, openly and blatantly in cahoots with industry for their own benefit. Remember Wilson’s Gannex mac? This was doubtless nothing new, but it was now out in the open or at least much more easily probed.

    Destruction of British Industry
    Wilson’s watch saw the rise of unprecedented union power, which was allowed to cripple manufacturing (think cars, steel, shipbuilding) and which continued until Thatcher broke the miners in the 1980s. That’s not to say unions haven’t been a force for good in improving working conditions etc., but under Wilson they very much had the upper hand (which is now really evident only in the rail unions as most of the rest have been emasculated). This ultimately led to substantial wage rises, high inflation, wage restraint, and high unemployment.

    British Rail & Utilities
    The actions of Dr Beeching in massacring Britain’s rail network were, admittedly, started under Harold Macmillan, however the pressure was continued under Wilson with BR, and indeed many other public utilities, being subjected to unprecedented attention from government accountants – something which continues to this day – and threats of nationalisation. This was in large part undone by the privatisation policies of Margaret Thatcher’s administration which has left many of our utilities in a position where it would be almost impossible to fully renationalise them.

    Financial Crisis
    All of this led, inexorably, to a financial and economic crisis, a series of failed economic measures, and the consequent devaluation of the pound by 14% in November 1967. Arguably the economy and the country’s financial situation has never recovered from this.

    Social Agenda
    Under Wilson’s administration we saw the first Race Relations Act (1965), the Sexual Offences Act (1967) and the abolition of (almost all) capital punishment (1965); followed later by an expansion of the welfare state. Our current social policies (including welfare payments) are very much built upon these foundations and are, in my estimation, a large factor in the current entitlement of much of the population.

    Corrupt Patronage
    Patronage, and corrupt patronage, has always happened. But because of the greater freedom of the media and its availability to all, Wilson’s patronage of people like Marcia Falkender (his political secretary and alleged mistress) and Lord Kagan (of Gannex macs) became open knowledge, if not actually more blatant.

    I’m not saying that all our current ills are directly attributable to Harold Wilson. Nor am I saying that Wilson didn’t do some good things (eg. the welfare state). But much of where the UK is now, at least internally, is built upon the foundations set by his administrations.

    That, at least, is my assessment. YMMV.

    There’s much, much more about Harold Wilson on Wikipedia.

    #HaroldWilson #history #politics #thoughts #zenmischief

  23. This story says to me,
    1) still hasn't been fixed, all these years later. I somehow doubt that it ever will be in this capitalist rich country.
    2) Unlike more recent PMs, obviously didn't abuse his position and connections to amass a lot of wealth. Despite all the flaws he was an underrated PM.

    Former PM Harold Wilson sold private papers to help fund his care | Harold Wilson | The Guardian
    theguardian.com/politics/artic

  24. This story says to me,
    1) #SocialCare still hasn't been fixed, all these years later. I somehow doubt that it ever will be in this capitalist rich country.
    2) Unlike more recent PMs, #HaroldWilson obviously didn't abuse his position and connections to amass a lot of wealth. Despite all the flaws he was an underrated PM.

    Former PM Harold Wilson sold private papers to help fund his care | Harold Wilson | The Guardian
    theguardian.com/politics/artic
    #history #dementia

  25. This story says to me,
    1) #SocialCare still hasn't been fixed, all these years later. I somehow doubt that it ever will be in this capitalist rich country.
    2) Unlike more recent PMs, #HaroldWilson obviously didn't abuse his position and connections to amass a lot of wealth. Despite all the flaws he was an underrated PM.

    Former PM Harold Wilson sold private papers to help fund his care | Harold Wilson | The Guardian
    theguardian.com/politics/artic
    #history #dementia

  26. This story says to me,
    1) #SocialCare still hasn't been fixed, all these years later. I somehow doubt that it ever will be in this capitalist rich country.
    2) Unlike more recent PMs, #HaroldWilson obviously didn't abuse his position and connections to amass a lot of wealth. Despite all the flaws he was an underrated PM.

    Former PM Harold Wilson sold private papers to help fund his care | Harold Wilson | The Guardian
    theguardian.com/politics/artic
    #history #dementia

  27. This story says to me,
    1) #SocialCare still hasn't been fixed, all these years later. I somehow doubt that it ever will be in this capitalist rich country.
    2) Unlike more recent PMs, #HaroldWilson obviously didn't abuse his position and connections to amass a lot of wealth. Despite all the flaws he was an underrated PM.

    Former PM Harold Wilson sold private papers to help fund his care | Harold Wilson | The Guardian
    theguardian.com/politics/artic
    #history #dementia

  28. #TakingABreakFromFilming
    #TheSpyWhoLovedMe (1977)
    #JamesBond investigates the hijacking of British & Russian submarines carrying nuclear warheads, with the help of a KGB agent whose lover he killed.

    British Prime Minister #HaroldWilson #RogerMoore #BarbaraBach at the 007 Stage in Pinewood Studios, UK (1976).
    #FilmMastodon 📽️ 🎬

  29. #TakingABreakFromFilming
    #TheSpyWhoLovedMe (1977)
    #JamesBond investigates the hijacking of British & Russian submarines carrying nuclear warheads, with the help of a KGB agent whose lover he killed.

    British Prime Minister #HaroldWilson #RogerMoore #BarbaraBach at the 007 Stage in Pinewood Studios, UK (1976).
    #FilmMastodon 📽️ 🎬

  30. #TakingABreakFromFilming
    #TheSpyWhoLovedMe (1977)
    #JamesBond investigates the hijacking of British & Russian submarines carrying nuclear warheads, with the help of a KGB agent whose lover he killed.

    British Prime Minister #HaroldWilson #RogerMoore #BarbaraBach at the 007 Stage in Pinewood Studios, UK (1976).
    #FilmMastodon 📽️ 🎬

  31. #TakingABreakFromFilming
    #TheSpyWhoLovedMe (1977)
    #JamesBond investigates the hijacking of British & Russian submarines carrying nuclear warheads, with the help of a KGB agent whose lover he killed.

    British Prime Minister #HaroldWilson #RogerMoore #BarbaraBach at the 007 Stage in Pinewood Studios, UK (1976).
    #FilmMastodon 📽️ 🎬

  32. #TakingABreakFromFilming
    #TheSpyWhoLovedMe (1977)
    #JamesBond investigates the hijacking of British & Russian submarines carrying nuclear warheads, with the help of a KGB agent whose lover he killed.

    British Prime Minister #HaroldWilson #RogerMoore #BarbaraBach at the 007 Stage in Pinewood Studios, UK (1976).
    #FilmMastodon 📽️ 🎬