Wilson- Clear Win in 64

[slon]

Oct 22, 2014 16:57:46 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Oct 22, 2014 16:52:34 GMT slon said:

Don't think the small majority would have been a problem in relation to the Northern Ireland situation ...... could have been over Rhodesia (another situation where Wilson sat on the fence until the fence had caught fire) 

Good point on Rhodesia...on NI, I was thinking more of whether they Wilson would take more deliberative action as the late 60s progressed.  My suspicion is no- but then he'd possibly have been willing to confront the UUP, unlike Heath.

Confrontation was not his thing .... nor I recall was anything which involved having principles.

[john07]

Oct 22, 2014 15:50:12 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

john07- what do you think would have happened to Northern Ireland?  Would Wilson have been willing to make a move against the Unionists with a majority, and would Jenkins have been able to enforce the Abortion Act on NI as well?

I don't think it would have made much difference. The hope initially was that Terence O'Neill would see through the reforms promised. By the time the troubles really kicked off in 1968, Labour had a massive majority.

[neilm]

Fifty pence coins were called Wilsons by some, as they are two-faced and many sided.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Oct 23, 2014 6:09:00 GMT @stuart said:

Oct 22, 2014 16:57:46 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Good point on Rhodesia...on NI, I was thinking more of whether they Wilson would take more deliberative action as the late 60s progressed.  My suspicion is no- but then he'd possibly have been willing to confront the UUP, unlike Heath.

Think he would have taken Churchill ' s maxim of not worth the effort. Most nationalists would have been appalled by such a move as well. It wouldn't have been worth the political capital.

I sense you're right.

I was reading about the Ulster Workers' Council strike the other day and it made we wonder if it could have been stamped out if a) they took John Hume's idea and split the electricity grid in two and b) they took Roy Mason's later approach of battering down blockades in the streets.

[john07]

Oct 23, 2014 0:46:15 GMT neilm said:

Fifty pence coins were called Wilsons by some, as they are two-faced and many sided.

Subsequently the pound coins were called Maggies as they were thick, brassy, and pretended to be a sovereign.

[Andrew_S]

A brilliant new resource: every issue of the Radio Times in online format.

This is the entry for Thursday 15th October 1964:

genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1964-10-15