Harold Wilson

From BillionQuotes

This People article is a stub. You can help Wikiquote by expanding it.

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was one of the longest serving Labour Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. Wilson is regarded by many as one of the more intellectual politicians of the century.

[edit]

Sourced

The school I went to in the north was a school where more than half the children in my class never had any boots or shoes to their feet. They wore clogs, because they lasted longer than shoes of comparable price.
- Speech in Birmingham, July 1948. The second sentence was largely forgotten.

On 5 September, when the TUC unanimously rejected wage restraint, it was the end of an era, and all the financiers, all the little gnomes in Zürich and other finance centres about whom we keep on hearing, had started to make their dispositions in regard to sterling.
- In the House of Commons, November 12, 1956. Often quoted as "gnomes of Zürich"

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that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry.
- Usually quoted as "the white heat of the technological revolution". Speech at Labour Party conference, October 1, 1963. Labour Party Annual Conference Report, 1963, pages 139-140.

Smethwick Conservatives can have the satisfaction of having topped the poll, of having sent a Member who, until another election returns him to oblivion, will serve his time here as a Parliamentary leper.
- In the House of Commons, November 4, 1964. The 1964 general election had seen the defeat of Wilson's Shadow Foreign Secretary Patrick Gordon Walker by Conservative Peter Griffiths after a racist campaign. Griffiths was indeed defeated at the next election but returned to Parliament in 1979 and served until 1997.

.. this tightly knit group of politically motivated men ..
- In the House of Commons, June 22, 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.

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.
- Usually remembered as "the Pound in your pocket". Televised speech, November 19, 1967 following the devaluation of the Pound Sterling.

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?
- Broadcast on May 25, 1974, referring to the Ulster Workers Council strike. The use of the term "sponging" gave offence in Northern Ireland.

[edit]