History of England 1-6

The prime minister’s attitude to the EEC was informed by cheerful ignorance. Wilson knew little of Europe and cared even less. The Scilly Isles were his preferred holiday destination and he considered champagne a poor substitute for beer. For Wilson, the referendum represented little more than an opportunity to steer the nation’s attention away from more proximate concerns. For his part, Callaghan was unconvinced. His apathy was apparent in a television interview where he refused to say whether the people should vote for or against remaining in the Common Market, even though his own government theoretically supported it. Yet even the government’s indifference counted in favour of the vote for ‘yes’. When the votes were counted, the referendum showed a majority of over 60 per cent in favour of remaining. The matter, for the moment, was closed. Now remained the question of failing exports, and other commitments which extended beyond the power of any single government to address, let alone resolve.

Harold Wilson had planned to resign at sixty, yet there was little to suggest that he would give up what power he had. However, there were no policies that were likely to come to fruition, and no garlands left to win. One civil servant recalled that Wilson seemed to be ‘living through one day to the next’, and there were more disturbing tokens of decline. His paranoia grew more acute as the Seventies progressed, and he saw spies everywhere. So fearful was he of the supposed influence of BOSS, South Africa’s infamous Bureau of State Security, that when rumours were brought to him about a dark conspiracy to murder Jeremy Thorpe, his friend and rival, he contrived to assure even parliament that BOSS was behind it. He was convinced that Number Ten was being bugged.

In the course of one remarkable interview he went further yet, to the brink of sanity itself. ‘I see myself as the big fat spider in the corner of the room,’ he informed two journalists. ‘Sometimes I speak when I’m asleep. You should both listen. Occasionally when we meet, I might tell you to go to the Charing Cross Road and kick a blind man standing in the corner. That blind man might tell you something, lead you somewhere.’ He began to delegate, and to drink, more and more. His once unassailable memory had begun to totter. The cabinet had not known of his plans to resign and, when the announcement came, it took everyone, even Callaghan, by surprise, and shock overwhelmed feelings of relief or regret. In March 1976, at a farewell party at Chequers, a photograph of the outgoing prime minister showed a little old man with wandering eyes and a vacant smile.

49

Let us bring harmony

After the surprise of his departure, Wilson was largely forgotten. But he had deserved better. In terms of his electoral record, he was the most successful prime minister in history. He had united a party whose constituent elements were never at ease with each other; he had presided over the golden age of the welfare state; and he had shown himself an unsurpassed political tactician. But he had outstayed his day.

In previous years, Roy Jenkins had been the favourite to succeed him, at least among members of the press. But as a passionate Europhile with tastes to match, he could never command the allegiance of the Left, while Michael Foot would never woo the Right. And Denis Healey, for all his brilliance, was simply too rebarbative. In any case, Wilson had picked his successor. In the event, ‘Big Jim’ Callaghan won the leadership by 176 votes to Michael Foot’s 137. The result was a clear endorsement, yet, for those on the right, an unsettling augury; Foot’s hour would come. Callaghan had long dreamed of the moment when he would kiss the sovereign’s hand. ‘Prime Minister,’ he was heard to murmur, ‘and never even went to university.’ The queen herself had been puzzled and disturbed by Wilson’s decision, but she acquiesced with her habitual grace.