{"product_id":"nick-thomas-symonds-harold-wilson-2023-paperback","title":"Nick Thomas-Symonds: Harold Wilson [2023] paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eHarold Wilson is the only post-war leader of any party to serve as Britain's Prime Minister on two separate occasions. In total he won four General Elections, spending nearly eight years in Downing Street. Half a century later, he is still unbeaten, Labour's greatest ever election winner. How did he do it - and at what cost?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCritics then and now have painted him as an opportunistic political calculator, even as a Soviet secret agent. In this powerful new portrait, drawing on previously unavailable sources and first-hand parliamentary insight, acclaimed biographer Nick Thomas-Symonds reveals a more complex figure. Wilson was a new kind of politician but, in his own way, this media-savvy harbinger of modernity was also a deeply traditional man, whose actions often suggest nothing less than a spiritual mission.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn an intriguing paradox, Wilson, influenced by the distinctively democratic faith of his Yorkshire boyhood, united a fractured Labour Party, ushering in the cultural and social changes of the 'swinging sixties'. His was the government to decriminalise homosexuality, legalise abortion and abolish capital punishment. With a brilliant mind, sure-footed political moves and a feel for public opinion, he was a survivor who over and over again emerged from desperate crises - even, perhaps, conspiracies - to lead his party to victory. It is time at last to learn his secrets.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Thomas-Symonds, Nick","offers":[{"title":"New","offer_id":50101149139283,"sku":"9781474611961","price":7.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0616\/4001\/6057\/files\/thomas-symonds-nick-nick-thomas-symonds-harold-wilson-2023-paperback-9781474611961-60706150613331.jpg?v=1736484067","url":"https:\/\/theirishbookshop.live\/products\/nick-thomas-symonds-harold-wilson-2023-paperback","provider":"Chapters Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}