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".
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attivista e politico nordirlandeseFrasi Harold Wilson
„The nation yesterday was awaiting a clear, statesmanlike call from the Chancellor of the efforts and, if necessary, the sacrifices that are needed to lift the country out of the perpetual series of crises and near crises that have dogged us ever since the war. That was what we were led to believe would happen. What did we get? We had a shambling, fumbling, largely irrelevant and, at one point, degrading speech. The Chancellor told us that the Budget was prepared under the piercing eye of Mr. Gladstone. There was one passage that was quite obviously written under a portrait of Horatio Bottomley.“
— Harold Wilson
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1956/apr/18/budget-proposals-and-economic-situation in the House of Commons (18 April 1956)
„We all know perfectly well why the Government are standing by their policy of the independent deterrent. The reason is simply prestige, keeping up with our nuclear neighbours. Frankly, we cannot do it. The Americans spend on research alone £2,500 million a year, which is half as much again as our total defence budget, and it is rising rapidly. We can only be a nuclear Power if we can afford the means to produce twenty or more alternative weapons as an assurance against the many which are certain to fail. Out of our resources, we were able to afford only one intercontinental ballistic missile, and that was Blue Streak. The failure of Blue Streak was the moment of truth for this country so far as the independent deterrent was concerned. To cling to the policy after that was…like the action of a rather pathetic sort of man who cannot afford a television and who cannot bring himself to admit the fact, so he puts up the aerial instead.“
— Harold Wilson
Shadow Foreign Secretary, Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1962/mar/06/defence#S5CV0655P0_19620306_HOC_217 in the House of Commons (6 March 1962)
„This country cannot afford now—if it ever could afford—unofficial strikes, wasteful stoppages, long, weary arguments about industrial demarcation, any more than we can afford out-of-date industrial methods, industrial promotion based on influence and connexion rather than technical ability, or management attitudes which give a higher priority to tax avoidance or the earning of quick, uncovenanted capital profits than to modernization and innovation in industrial production methods, or aggressiveness in exports.“
— Harold Wilson
Prime Minister, Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Brighton (12 December 1964), quoted in The Times (14 December 1964), p. 14
„We are the party of human rights—the only party of human rights that will be speaking from this platform this month. (Loud applause.) The struggle against racialism is a worldwide fight. It is the dignity of man for which we are fighting. If what we assert is true for Birmingham, it is true for Bulawayo. If ever there were a condemnation of the values of the party which forms the Opposition it is the fact that the virus of Powellism has taken so firm a hold at every level.“
— Harold Wilson
Prime Minister, Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (1 October 1968), quoted in The Times (2 October 1968), p. 4
„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
Prime Minister, 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.
„We have not been pushed around either abroad or at home and we are not going to be. This is government of the people; it is government for all the people, and the accent is on government.“
— Harold Wilson
Prime Minister, Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool (28 September 1965), quoted in The Times (29 September 1965), p. 5.
„David Dimbleby: You couldn't - you couldn't set our minds at rest on the vexed question of what the Sunday Times did actually pay you for the book?
Harold Wilson: No, I don't think it's a matter of interest to the BBC or to anybody else.
Dimbleby: But why..
Wilson: If you're interested in these things, you'd better find out how people buy yachts. Do you ask that question? Did you ask him how he was able to pay for a yacht?
Dimbleby: I haven't interviewed …
Wilson: Have you asked him that question?
Dimbleby: I haven't interviewed him.
Wilson: Well, has the BBC ever asked that question?
Dimbleby: I don't know …
Wilson: Well, what's it got to do with you, then?
Dimbleby: I imagine they have..
Wilson: Why you ask these question, I mean why, if people can afford to buy £25,000 yachts, do the BBC not regard that as a matter for public interest? Why do you insult me with these questions here?
Dimbleby: It's only that it's been a matter of..
Wilson: All I'm saying, all I'm saying..
Dimbleby: … public speculation, and I was giving you an opportunity if you wanted to, to say something about it.
Wilson: It was not a matter of speculation, it was just repeating press gossip. You will not put this question to Mr. Heath. When you have got an answer to him, come and put the question to me. And this last question and answer are not to be recorded. Is this question being recorded?
Dimbleby: Well it is, because we're running film.
Wilson: Well, will you cut it out or not? All right, we stop now. No, I'm sorry, I'm really not having this. I'm really not having this. The press may take this view, that they wouldn't put this question to Heath but they put it to me; if the BBC put this question to me, without putting it to Heath, the interview is off, and the whole programme is off. I think it's a ridiculous question to put. Yes, and I mean it cut off, I don't want to read in the Times Diary or miscellany that I asked for it to be cut out. [pause]
Dimbleby: All right, are we still running? Can I ask you this, then, which I mean, I.. let me put this question, I mean if you find this question offensive then..
Wilson: Coming to ask if your curiosity can be satisfied, I think it's disgraceful. Never had such a question in an interview in my life before.
Dimbleby: I.. [gasps]
Joe Haines (Wilson's Press Secretary): Well, let's stop now, and we can talk about it, shall we?
Dimbleby: No, let's.. well, I mean, we'll keep going, I think, don't you?
Wilson: No, I think we'll have a new piece of film in and start all over again. But if this film is used, or this is leaked, then there's going to be a hell of a row. And this must be..
Dimbleby: Well, I certainly wouldn't leak it..
Wilson: You may not leak it but these things do leak. I've never been to Lime Grove without it leaking.“
— Harold Wilson
Leader of the Opposition, Exchange with BBC interviewer David Dimbleby recorded for a documentary called "Yesterday's Men" broadcast on 16 June 1971. The BBC did agree not to show this portion of the interview, but Wilson's fears of a leak were justified as a transcript was published on page 1 of The Times on June 18, 1971. A fuller transcript appeared in Private Eye during 1972.
„We have taken steps which have not been taken by any other democratic government in the world. We are taking steps with regard to prices and wages which no other government, even in wartime, has taken.“
— Harold Wilson
Prime Minister, Speech in the White House (29 July 1966), quoted in The Times (30 July 1966), p. 1.
„From now on, the pound abroad is worth 14 per cent or so less in terms of other currencies. That doesn't mean, of course, that the Pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued.“
— Harold Wilson
Prime Minister, Broadcast http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/19/newsid_3208000/3208396.stm (19 November 1967), following the devaluation of the Pound Sterling. Usually remembered as "the Pound in your pocket".
„May I say, for the benefit of those who have been carried away by the gossip of the last few days, that I know what's going on. [pause] I'm going on, and the Labour government's going on.“
— Harold Wilson
Prime Minister, Speech at a May Day rally in London (4 May 1969), quoted in The Times (5 May 1969), p. 1. There had been a series of reports that Wilson's leadership might be challenged.
„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
Prime Minister, Speech in the House of Commons (20 June 1966) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1966/jun/20/seamens-strike, 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.
„He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.“
— Harold Wilson
Prime Minister, Speech to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France (23 January 1967), quoted in The New York Times (24 January 1967), p. 12.
