A short tome on politics… and it’s not weak

Review: Harold Wilson – Twentieth Century Man, by Alan Johnson (Swift Press)

By Brian Lavery

HERE’S a first!

Alan Johnson and firebrand socialist Jimmy Reid have something common, even though the two were – and still are – poles and polls apart.

A Scottish journalist once described Red Clydesider Reid as “having the gift of saying exactly what he means”.

It was a gift the Glaswegian showed in his oratory and writing throughout his life, from his beginnings with the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders’ sit-in in the 70s through his career as a prolific journalist and documentarian.

Johnson has that the same gift.

And this is illustrated well in Harold Wilson – Twentieth Century Man.

This short biography is almost conversational yet rigorous and clearly well researched.

Johnson’s deftness of phrase carries the prose at pace, and soon you are on the final page – 149.

There are ‘plus ca change’ revelations of 1960s political chicanery that stand the test of time against the modern era as Johnson’s pen-portrait insights into spin doctors and undue influence shows us the worlds of Joe Haines and ‘that secretary’ Marcia, later ‘Lady’, Falkender of lavender notepaper infamy.

The former having written the bendable rulebook for the Campbell to come. And the latter making Cherie Blair look timid!

Johnson is also at pains to ensure objectivity, and there are times I thought the book could have been re-titled Harold Wilson – Twentieth Century Fox.

It begins with a detailed background of the Wilson family and their antecedents – and the interesting mention of a photo taken in 1924 of the-then eight-year-old that was to portent the future.

The picture taken on a family outing to London shows little Harold on the steps of Number 10.

Such nuggets are dotted throughout.

Johnson sticks to a chronological order for the most part but when he does digress, it is justified.

He writes for the lowest common denominator without talking down – as a good communicator should.

Write what you know is always the advice sage old scribes give to young aspirants. And Johnson certainly knows that of which he writes.

His 20 years as a Labour MP for Hull West and Hessle, latterly a Cabinet minister and his previous incarnation as a trade unionist allows this famous ex-postman to deliver as chronicler.

This book provides a great insight into one of the great figures of the twentieth century and is even-handed in its description of the power plays and personalities of age.

It ends with a quote from another journalist, and it only seems fair to use it as this began with one.

It came from Bernard Levin – who, like Wilson, was another iconic figure of the Sixties but whose social mobility seemed matched only by his social climbing.

Levin wrote: “[Harold Wilson's] mastery of the political arts was unceasingly displayed to the confounding of the prophets, the discomfiture of his critics and the helpless rage of his political opponents.”

Johnson added: “Everyone who knew him [Wilson], in whatever capacity, friend or foe, testified to his decency, utter lack of pomposity and unfailing kindness.”

Another trait the author shares with a figure with whom, like Reid, he has many differences.