| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Starmergeddon | |
| Posted by: | Robert Fish | |
| Date/Time: | 03/07/24 15:22:00 |
| What a pathetically predictable response from you, Richard! I remember well the 1964-70 Wilson administrations, and I have to say you've picked a wholly inappropriate subject for your whataboutery. Wilson isn't in the pantheon of the great C20 Prime Ministers, but he certainly wasn't the worst. I think you must have been too young at the time to be aware of his achievements. His government introduced many groundbreaking social reforms: legalising homosexuality and abortion, abolition of the death penalty and of theatre censorship, and divorce law reform. Above all, he resisted pressure from the US and kept us out of the Vietnam war. His economic policies were less successful, because the unions never really supported his efforts to end industrial strife - they expected a Labour government to be siding with them. He also had to reckon with the hostility of vested interests, which provoked a sterling crisis immediately he assumed office. It's for debate whether he should have devalued in 1964, rather than in 1967, when it was finally forced on him, but he was probably reluctant in 1964 because it would inevitably impoverish working people (by contrast, the impoverishment of working people doesn't seem to have troubled Conservative governments in the last 14 years). |