WHEN the definitive history of post-war Britain comes to be written,
Harold Wilson must be recognised as the outstanding Prime Minister of
the period. His policies, had they come to fruition, stood a better
chance of producing ''a nation at ease with itself'' than anything
devised by the present Prime Minister.
Wilson's legacy to the country should have been a strong economy
founded upon technology and full employment; a humane social policy
overseen by a respected public service sector ensuring that there could
never be, in this country, the sort of social and industrial wasteland
with which we are only too familiar today; a nation protected by a
realistic defence policy fully compatable with Britain's changed status
in the world order. He even made a more than respectable attempt at
reforming industrial relations.
James Callaghan frustrated Wilson's efforts in this field. It was
poetic justice that the downfall of his administration was, in part,
brought about by the intransigence of the unreconstructed trade-union
movement. He had to drink from the chalice he poisoned. James
Callaghan's place in history is assured as an unwitting architect of
Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1979.
Those who dispute my forecast about Harold Wilson's place in history
by claiming it for Margaret Thatcher misunderstand recent events. Her
period in office will be seen as a destructive throwback to the
political economy of Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir Charles Wood, both of
the mid-nineteenth century, and of Neville Chamberlain in his
incarnation as Chancellor of the Exchequer in our century.
We must never lose sight of the fact that she would have lost her
first General Election fought as Prime Minister because of the havoc she
wrought on our industrial base, had it not been for General Galtieri
whose occupation of the Falklands enabled her to embark on her
Palmerstonian frolic in the South Atlantic.
The irony of the whole Falklands episode was that one discredited
leader in seeking to retain power by military opportunism enabled
another discredited leader to save her Government by the very same
means.
John W Elliott,
19 Gordon Avenue,
Bishopton.
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