Frasi di Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
Data di nascita: 11. Marzo 1916
Data di morte: 24. Maggio 1995
Altri nomi:James Harold Wilson
Lord James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson de Rievaulx è stato un politico britannico, esponente del Labour Party, che ricoprì due volte discontinue la carica di Primo Ministro del Regno Unito, dal 1964 al 1970 e dal 1974 al 1976.
Dopo essere stato docente di economia a Oxford, dal 1945 fu deputato del Partito Laburista; dal 1947 al 1951 fu ministro del commercio con C.R. Atlee e nel 1963 sostituì Hugh Gaitskell alla guida dei laburisti.
Vinte le elezioni dell'anno seguente divenne Primo ministro del Regno Unito mantenendosi in carica fino al 1970 e poi ancora dal 1974 al 1976, quando decise di ritirarsi a favore di James Callaghan.
In politica estera Wilson fu sostanzialmente contrario alle istituzioni europee; di fronte alla crisi dell'economia britannica cercò di preservare il benessere e la stabilità sociale del Welfare State applicando una politica deflazionistica e il "controllo sociale" dei redditi concertato con le Trade Unions. I costi elevati del Welfare State e l'eccessivo peso politico concesso ai sindacati forumularono tuttavia le premesse alla crisi del Partito laburista e, quindi, dei successivi trionfi di Margaret Thatcher.
Wilson fu il Primo Ministro inglese che fece nominare dalla Regina Elisabetta II i Beatles come "baronetti".
Frasi Harold Wilson
„We commemorate a man, a leader, who in the years of creation and achievement towered above his contemporaries in figure and manner, in voice and power, who worked and fought, and who suffered—as they all suffered who dared to preach socialism in an unreceptive and hostile age. He was a man who had vision, and dared all in those years to make that vision a reality; a man who inspired affection in his associates as in his own domestic circle, and who, daring all, created a lasting and durable political instrument which today 60 years after its first political success, provides the Government of this country and in so providing owes more than many are prepared to admit to the young Ramsay MacDonald.“
— Harold Wilson
Speech at a luncheon in the House of Commons to commemorate the centenary of Ramsay MacDonald's birth (12 October 1966), quoted in The Times (13 October 1966), p. 12.
„I get a little nauseated, perhaps, when I hear the phrase "freedom of the Press" used as freely as it is, knowing that a large part of our proprietorial Press is not free at all“
— Harold Wilson
[http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1974/dec/05/prime-minister-visits Speech in the House of Commons (5 December 1974)]
„In all our plans for the future, we are re-defining and we are re-stating our Socialism in terms of the scientific revolution. But that revolution cannot become a reality unless we are prepared to make far-reaching changes in economic and social attitudes which permeate our whole system of society. The Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry.“
— Harold Wilson
Speech at Labour Party conference (1 October 1963), quoted in Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1963, pp. 139-140. Usually quoted as "the white heat of the technological revolution".
„We are more interested in the monthly trade returns than in Debrett, more preoccupied with what is said by the industrial correspondents and economic editors than what is said by William Hickey; more concerned with modernizing the machinery of government and the action that will need to follow the report of the Estimates Committee on the Civil Service than in altering the layout of Burke's Landed Gentry.“
— Harold Wilson
Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1965), quoted in The Times (29 September 1965), p. 5.
„It is difficult for us to appreciate the pressures which are being put on men I know to be realistic and reasonable, not only in their executive capacity but in the highly organised strike committees in the individual ports, by this tightly knit group of politically motivated men who, as the last General Election showed, utterly failed to secure acceptance of their views by the British electorate, but who are now determined to exercise backstage pressures, forcing great hardship on the members of the union and their families, and endangering the security of the industry and the economic welfare of the nation.“
— Harold Wilson
[http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1966/jun/20/seamens-strike Speech in the House of Commons (20 June 1966)], referring to the organisers of a Seamen's strike. Wilson meant to imply they were Communists. Among the union officials offended by this quote was John Prescott.
„Yet people who benefit from all this now viciously defy Westminster, purporting to act as though they were an elected government; people who spend their lives sponging on Westminster and British democracy and then systematically assault democratic methods. Who do these people think they are?“
— Harold Wilson
Broadcast (25 May 1974), referring to the Ulster Workers Council strike.
„[The 1964 General Election] was a decision that not only our industrial system but every aspect of our national life that has been corrupted by the doctrine of a self-perpetuating establishment should give way to an open society where knowing your job would mean more than knowing the right people. It was a decision that national purpose should override sectional interest, that earning money took precedence over making money. It was a decision for change: not change for its own sake, but change, radical and dynamic, for economic and social purpose. It was a decision, in short, that Britain should have a government and that the government should govern.“
— Harold Wilson
Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1965), quoted in The Times (29 September 1965), p. 5.
„I have always said about Tony [Benn] that he immatures with age.“
— Harold Wilson
Interview with The Times (7 April 1981), p. 12.
„[Ramsay MacDonald was] a man of great stature, capable of inspiring massive affection and massive attack—a man who created and led a great party and who has become a legend in that party equally for the manner of his leaving it as for the years he gave its creation.... They drew their inspiration from Merrie England and dry statistics, they sang their widely differing battle songs, and Ramsay MacDonald had to fashion from the strains of Edward Carpenter's 'England Arise', from the 'Internationale', from 'Jerusalem', from the 'Red Flag', from 'These Things Shall Be', a new harmony. In 1906 in MacDonald's fortieth year, he saw the victory—the dawn of the new era.“
— Harold Wilson
Speech at a luncheon in the House of Commons to commemorate the centenary of Ramsay MacDonald's birth (12 October 1966), quoted in The Times (13 October 1966), p. 12.
„The last two years show that what Enoch [Powell] says today Edward [Heath] will be proclaiming as Tory policy anything from three to six months later... Selsdon Man is not just a lurch to the right, it is an atavistic desire to reverse the course of twenty-five years of social revolution. What they are planning is a wanton, calculated and deliberate return to greater inequality... The message to the British people would be simple and brutal. It would say, "You're out on your own".“
— Harold Wilson
Speech in Nottingham (6 February 1970), quoted in The Times (7 February 1970), p. 1 and Philip Whitehead, The Writing on the Wall: Britain in the Seventies (London: Michael Joseph, 1985), p. 40.
„I believe that the situation has now gone so far that it is impossible to conceive of an effective long-term solution in which the agenda at least does not include consideration of, and which is not in some way directed to finding a means of achieving, the aspirations envisaged half a century ago, of progress towards a united Ireland... A substantial term of years will be required before any concept of unification could become a reality, but the dream must be there. If men of moderation have nothing to hope for, men of violence will have something to shoot for.“
— Harold Wilson
[http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1971/nov/25/northern-ireland-1 Speech] in the House of Commons (25 November 1971)
„The Smethwick Conservatives can have the satisfaction of having topped the poll, and of having sent here as their Member one who, until a further General Election restores him to oblivion, will serve his term here as a Parliamentary leper“
— Harold Wilson
[http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1964/nov/03/debate-on-the-address-first-day Speech in the House of Commons (3 November 1964)]. The 1964 general election had seen the defeat of Wilson's Shadow Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker by Conservative Peter Griffiths after an allegedly racist campaign. Griffiths was indeed defeated at the next election but returned to Parliament in 1979 and served until 1997.
„It stems from the loss of the election and the growth of the 'cowboys'. The Labour Party has got out of the way of losing elections. We are now the natural party of government... These cowboys are absolute Trots. The number of Communists in the party is very small but the Trots are much more sinister. They are negative and have no policy. There is a fairly high number of— not intellectuals but let's say intelligentsia element there, stemming not least from the growth of sociology as a discipline in the universities.“
— Harold Wilson
Interview with The Times (7 April 1981), p. 12.
