WILSON, HAROLD — A Prime Minister on Prime Ministers

NY, Summit Books. 1977. Hardcover with dust jacket, 25cm. Book, 334pp + 1 kg of text, numerous bw pix throughout, pp clean white & well bound, review - Harold Wilson (1916 - 1995) was Labour Prime Minister between 1964 and 1970, and 1974 and 1976. An intelligent schoolboy, he won the chance to study at Oxford University, where he got a first in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (achieving the highest grade awarded in that subject in the 1930s). Wilson was therefore better suited than many to look back on our country's premiers, and he made an accompanying television series on the subject. The twelve premiers Wilson examines are Pitt the Younger, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, David Lloyd George, Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee and Harold Macmillan (with brief sketches of the others). Wilson was seen as being on the left-wing of the Labour Party in his younger days so it was surprising to read his judgment of Ramsay MacDonald. The orthodox Labour view was that MacDonald betrayed the working class in 1931 by joining a 'National' government with the class enemy, the Tories, and nearly destroying the Labour Party in the process. Wilson is more sympathetic to MacDonald, crediting him for making Labour a 'party of government' and portraying him more as naive than genuinely scheming for an end to Labour government in 1931. The chapters on the more recent premiers have the added touch that Wilson inserted little personal anecdotes in them that make them more interesting and 'real'. The book is aimed at the general reader, so there are no footnotes. This book is enjoyable to read, due in part to Wilson's rather individual writing style (he could turn a phrase like few others). Excellent/Excellent.