Wilson, as Thomas-Symonds says, was an underestimated social reformer who expanded higher education and the social services, and made Britain a more pleasant place to live in through such measures as outlawing race and sex discrimination, equal pay for women, maternity leave, safety at work and, above all, the Open University, of which he was particularly proud.

the winner’ Harold Wilson Keir Starmer is looking more like ‘the winner’ Harold Wilson

With a brilliant mind, sure-footed political moves and a feel for public opinion, he was a survivor who over and over again emerged from desperate crises - even, perhaps, conspiracies - to lead his party to victory. Wilson was prime minister for eight years and won four general elections (in 1964, 1966 and October 1974, although he served as prime minister of a minority government from February 1974). These shifts appeared necessary to hold the divided and fractious Labour coalition together, not an easy task. Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them. Yet the need to support the pound displaced all serious attempts to restructure the economy, while the rate of inflation quickened and strikes undermined efforts to slow the rate of pay increases.Harold Wilson is the only post-war leader of any party to serve as Britain’s Prime Minister on two separate occasions.

Harold Wilson: The Winner by Nick Thomas-Symonds review – a

In 1949, he joined two other young Labour ministers, Hugh Gaitskell and Douglas Jay, in advising prime minister Clement Attlee on the matter of if and when to devalue sterling. In October 2016 Nick became the Shadow Solicitor-General, and in July 2017, was given the added responsibility as the Shadow Minister for Security. It might teach him how to get to Downing Street, but it will not help him decide what to do if he gets there. Thomas-Symonds, free of such prejudices, leaves the reader in no doubt that Harold Wilson was a good prime minister – but hardly a great one.He has served on the Labour frontbench in a number of roles; Shadow Pensions Minister; Shadow Employment Minister; Shadow Solicitor-General; Shadow Security Minister; Shadow Welsh Office Minister; Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade. It was, though, the chaotic economic situation resulting in the three-day working week which, in the snap election of 1974, brought Wilson back to Downing Street.