Tag Archives: Harold Wilson

Dishonourable Insults by Greg Knight

By Mark Pack | Published 4th November 2011 - 7:46 am

Over the years, Conservative MP Greg Knight has made a mini-cottage industry out of collections of political insults, wit and invective, of which the new Dishonourable Insults is the fifth.

Spot checking the content of this volume against one of his previous works - Parliamentary Sauce - you find that there is a fair amount of reused content, including whole passages which reappear with varying degrees of editing. Generally the 19th and early 20th century figures have had their range of insults edited down, losing as a result one of my favourite Disraeli insults, directed at a backbench MP: “He is not …

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Media spin, 1966 vintage

By Mark Pack | Published 12th October 2011 - 11:55 am

Hello again to an old story which I cam across in the archives whilst looking for something else. Trust me, it’s more interesting than the Something Else which, even with the use of capital letters and ominous music, turned out to be a damper squib than the empty chocolate wrapper left in the work kitchen last week.

So instead… it’s back to 1966, again.

During the 1966 general election campaign, Prime Minister Harold Wilson visited the Birmingham Rag Market for a public meeting (scene of a famous* public meeting in the 1964 campaign when the then Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home got shouted …

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So, what does a Special Adviser do?

By Duncan Brack | Published 1st June 2010 - 1:25 pm

Special advisers (or “spads” for short) tend to have a bad press. Alastair Campbell was a spad, as was Jo (“good day to bury bad news”) Moore; Andrew Blick’s book on the topic was called People Who Live in the Dark; and a contributor to a recent Lib Dem Voice exchange observed that “We made so many breaks with New Labour, why did we have to adopt their spad culture?”

Actually special advisers have a much longer history than that. One can trace their origins right back to Lloyd …

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Daily View 2×2: 16 March 2010

By Alex Foster | Published 16th March 2010 - 7:30 am

Good morning, and welcome to Daily View. I’m standing in for your usual Tuesday host because Sara was rushed into hospital yesterday. Get well soon, Sara.

March 16th in history saw the resignation of Harold Wilson in 1976; in 1995, Mississippi finally ratified the 13th Amendment and officially outlawed slavery in US.

Today is the birthday of Isabelle Huppert and Jimmy Nail.

2 Big Stories

Police investigate Labour MP Ashok Kumar’s death

Police and doctors are investigating the death of a Labour MP whose body was found at his home yesterday.

Dr Ashok Kumar, 53, had been working as normal, with major commitments as parliamentary private secretary to Hilary Benn, the environment secretary. He was also campaigning for Corus steelworkers’ jobs in his Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency. His body was found after anxious staff failed to rouse him by phone and called emergency services, who broke into his home.

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Daily View 2×2: 11 March 2010

By Alex Foster | Published 11th March 2010 - 7:34 am

Good morning, and welcome to Daily View.

Today is notable as the day before LDV’s fascinating fringe event on how to make authoritarian MPs pay at the ballot box – do join us tomorrow in Birmingham to find out how.

302 years ago today, Queen Anne was the last British monarch to withhold Royal Assent from a bill of Parliament.

In 1864, Sheffield saw a Great Flood when a dam under construction burst. The ensuing inundation wrecked a number of bridges, destroyed 800 houses and killed 270 people.

People born on March 11th include Laurence Llewellyn Bowen, Harold Wilson and Douglas Adams; and deaths include Alexander Fleming, John Wyndham and Slobodan Milošević.

2 Big Stories

Parties battle over high speed rail

Will Labour’s Y or the Conservative Reverse-S win the day? Find out in The Times

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