Political Prodigy

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30058, 16 February 1963, Page 11

Political Prodigy

When Mr Harold Wilson went straight to the front bench as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works on his election to Parliament in 1945, he was regarded as a political infant prodigy (he was then 28) and a great political career was prophesied for him. His election as Labour Party leader at a time when Conservative stocks are low, gives substance to these early forecasts.

Now aged 46, Mr Wilson has been a member of the “shadow” Cabinet of the Parliamentary Labour Party ‘since 1954, and when in December, 1955, Mr Gaitskell became Leader of the Opposition, Mr Wilson took over from him the responsibility for shaping the party’s financial and economic policy, together with the designation of "shadow” Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr Wilson was a member of the two post-war Labour Governments, and was President of the Board of Trade from September, 1947, until April, 1951, when he resigned, ait the time of Mr Aneurin Bevan’s resignation as Minister of Labour, on the ground that the scale of the Government's rearmament

programme would impose too great a strain on the country's economy. Minister At 31 When he was appointed President of the Board of Trade, Mr Wilson became at the same time a Privy Councillor and a member of the Cabinet—something of an achievement for a man of 31, but in keeping with Mr Wilson's previous record.

He was 29 when he became a junior minister, th* youngest member of the Labour Government formed in 1945 He had not been in Parliament before, but he came to th. Commons with an established reputation as a brilliant economist, and a year later be was heading the British delegation to the Preparatory Commission of the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Washington During the war he had been a civil servant, rising to be Director of Economics and Statistics at the Ministry of Fuel and Power; before that, he had been an Oxford don at .the age of 21. Scholastic Record He was born in 1916, and worked his way up by scholarships to Jesus College, Oxford, where he gained one of the moot outstanding firsts in Modern Great* (philoso-

phy, politic* and economics) ever achieved. He wa* a good athlete too, and ran for hi* university in cross-country events.

Immediately after taking his degree, he was made lecturer in economics at New College, Oxford, and at the same time research assistant to Lord Beveridge on trade and unemployment questions. Mr Wilson was later to help him in the preparation of hi* greet scheme of social security, and on unemployment problems. On the outbreak of war in 1939 Mr Wilson volunteered for the Army, but the Government preferred to use him in the civil service, and after a spell at the Ministry of Supply, he went as economic assistant to the War Cabinet Secretariat, from 1940 to 1941. He then served at the Ministry of Labour and at the Ministry of Fuel and Power. He gained a wide knowledge of the mining industry and in 1945, just before the General Election, published his book. "New Deal for Coal." outlining the Socialist policy of nationalisation, described by “Th* Times” in a main leader as “a brilliant exposition of th* Socialist case." After hi* election to Parliament, he turned his academic powers to good i;count in the fields of social security and coalmining and threw himself with zest into the post-war reconstruction campaign. In 1947, he was transferred to the Board of Trade and ha succeeded Sir Stafford Cripps on the latter'* appointment a* Chancellor.

As President of the Board of Trade, Mr Wilson worked hard to increase Britain’* export trade and carried on talks with trade delegations from all over the world. In 1950. he was re-elected to Parliament, and held x the Board of Trade poet till his resignation. Challeng* to Gaitskell Party internal feuding during Labour's subsequent years of Opposition found him for a peri of prominently identified with the Bevanites. But long before that party grouping in Parliament broke up. he emerged in an independent role. Three years ago Mr Wilson challenged Mr Gaitskell for the leadership just after Labour’s annual conference had humiliated it* official chief* by a ban-the-bomb vote.

Mr Wilson share* Mr Gaitskell's view that collective defenece i* necessary, but he claimed then that the leader no longer commanded party unity.

In the leadership contest, Mr Gaitskell beat him by a two to one majority, and Mr Wilson suffered some unpopularity for making th* challenge. But bi* majority over Mr George Brown for the leadereship indicate* that he ha* been largely forgiven. Mr Wilson i* married and has two son*. The elder, Robin, aged 19, is reading mathematics at Oxford. The Wilson* live in a comfortable

house in Hampstead, where Mrs Wilson doe* her own cooking, grows roses and writes poetry.