I’d read a great review of the Blair biography in this Prime Minister series, but decided to start a little earlier with Harold Wilson. And I knew that Alan Johnson would likely produce an excellent and readable work.
That proved to be true; Johnson’s easy but thorough style combines historical fact with occasional commentary from somebody who himself was a skilled and experienced politician. I love the format of these biographies – deliberately short and concise (~160 pages), they nevertheless give a really decent telling of the lives of some of the key figures in British political history.
Harold Wilson is a fascinating character, a driven academic who evolved from brilliant technocrat to highly accomplished political winner. His Labour government drove huge societal change – abolition of the death penalty, decriminalisation of homosexuality, removal of theatre censorship, loosening of abortion law… a long list of accomplishments that part-mirrored, part-influenced the 60s as a decade of revolution in the UK.
Highly recommended.
