A Personal Record: The Labour Government, 1964-1970. - Hardcover

Wilson, Harold

9780316944908: A Personal Record: The Labour Government, 1964-1970.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316944904 ISBN 13: 9780316944908

Publisher: Little, Brown, & Co., 1971

This 800-page memoir of Harold Wilson's prime ministerial ups and downs might as aptly have been titled ""My 1000 Crises"" though it is withal a very personal -- and an enormously valuable -- record of the late Labour Government and its leader who tells not everything but certainly enough. The month-by-month chronicle format serves Mr. Wilson's purposes nicely -- methodical, comprehensive assessment of Labour's accomplishments, rationalization of the government's failures, an opportunity to evaluate the men and events he dealt with at home and abroad -- but eventually the reader is boggled by the tidy chronology as Mr. Wilson abruptly scurries from one incendiary situation to another. Now the P.M. is confronting the chronic balance of payments issue or the Rhodesian quagmire or Nigeria then hurries off to meet with the Russians or the Americans coming back home to a strike when up pops that nagging trade deficit and the pound starts hemorrhaging again and now to Chequers for a conference on the Aden crisis but then George Brown resigns (several times) and what to do about Northern Ireland (the Irish again), or now speaking in Commons having a bit of ""fun at the Opposition's expense"" or ""acidly"" even ""menacingly"" reproving a bumptious South African for brushing ""his capacious frame against my face"" and on and on. Mr. Wilson was without doubt a tireless minister and no wonder his holidays were constantly being interrupted, but that does not change the fact that perspective here is sacrificed to his choice of format, quite possibly for self-serving reasons -- it makes the contradictions more difficult to spot for one thing. Nonetheless, whatever its faults, this political retrospect is meatier, more candid, better written, and less costive than anyone had a right to expect. Illustrated with photos and political cartoons, many reflecting on ""Good Old 'arold"" unfavorably.

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