Cultural currency: Wilson posing with the Beatles in 1964
© BENTLEY ARCHIVE/POPPERFOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES
The beatification of Harold Wilson, especially in the Labour Party, is a wonder to behold. Tories always had a grudging admiration for the master tactician who won four of the five elections in the turbulent decade between 1964 and 1974. But his name was mud among Bennites and Blairites alike in the years from his resignation in 1976 until the end of the Blair era. To the Labour left, he sold out; to the right, he didn’t sell out—or “modernise”—enough. His previous biographers were ambivalent at best. His tawdry resignation honours list—wealthy tycoon James Goldsmith et al—cast a long shadow.