The former prime minister who fascinates the Labour Party

Starmerites are studying a neglected former leader


  • by
  • 02 8, 2024
  • in Britain

SIR KEIR STARMERMI sometimes says that he must emulate all three previous leaders of the Labour Party to win governing majorities. He has to revive a battered country like Clement Attlee (who was prime minister in 1945-51), modernise the economy like Harold Wilson (1964-70, 1974-76) and fix public services like Sir Tony Blair (1997-2007). The second of this trio particularly fascinates the party. Sir Keir flecks his speeches with Wilson-era clichés (“white heat” and “the pound in your pocket”). Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is an admirer, as is Nick Thomas-Symonds, a shadow minister and author of a well-reviewed Wilson biography.Wilson left office tainted by sleaze and fixated by alleged 5 plots against him. Labour’s left reviled him as a schemer, the party’s right as a relic who had failed to modernise Britain’s economy or tame the unions. He has undergone a resurrection in part due to Labour’s chronic nostalgia, and in part because it is tired of losing and Wilson was a winner (“the sine qua non of a successful leader,” notes Mr Thomas-Symonds). The dates of his election victories are used by some in the party as shorthand for possible outcomes this year: a “’64” (a tiny majority), a “’66” (a big majority) or a “’74” (a hung parliament followed by a majority in another election called soon after). But the Wilson renaissance is also because his era has strong parallels with Labour’s position today.

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