Heath vs Wilson: The 10-Year Duel

0:00:05 > 0:00:09For ten tumultuous years from 1965 to '75,

0:00:09 > 0:00:16two men fought THE heavyweight duel of 20th-century British politics.

0:00:19 > 0:00:22One was the Labour leader and Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.

0:00:22 > 0:00:26The Britain that is going to forged in the white heat of this revolution.

0:00:26 > 0:00:27APPLAUSE

0:00:28 > 0:00:33The other was the Conservative leader and Prime Minister, Edward Heath.

0:00:33 > 0:00:38Away with all the short-term gimmickry and instant government we've had for the last few years.

0:00:41 > 0:00:49Heath and Wilson governed in an era of huge upheaval - the swinging sixties and turbulent seventies.

0:00:51 > 0:00:55On their watch, Britain changed irreversibly...

0:00:55 > 0:00:58and become a nation state within Europe.

0:00:58 > 0:01:00The future is yours!

0:01:02 > 0:01:06But it also hit economic and industrial chaos.

0:01:06 > 0:01:11Mr Heath has given the militants the charter they always dreamed of.

0:01:14 > 0:01:18The Heath-Wilson duel spanned four elections...

0:01:18 > 0:01:21their rivalry was both political and personal.

0:01:21 > 0:01:27It was quite extraordinary how much they hated each other when they were opposite each other

0:01:27 > 0:01:33in the House of Commons, and yet in some ways they were extraordinarily similar characters.

0:01:33 > 0:01:38Harold Wilson and Edward Heath were the political titans of their era.

0:01:38 > 0:01:43Two grammar school boys, born in the same year,

0:01:43 > 0:01:47who grew into very different men, bound by political fate.

0:01:47 > 0:01:50They were a double act for 10 years, we began to think

0:01:50 > 0:01:55in those days, it would be like Gladstone and Disraeli, would this double act ever come to an end?

0:01:55 > 0:01:59Their double act did come to an end.

0:01:59 > 0:02:04But by then, the Heath-Wilson duel had redefined a nation.

0:02:04 > 0:02:08# Hey, you, get off of my cloud

0:02:08 > 0:02:13# Hey, you, get off of my cloud. #

0:02:18 > 0:02:22In October 1964, Harold Wilson was elected British Prime Minister.

0:02:25 > 0:02:29It marked a huge change from the public school toffs who had been running the country.

0:02:30 > 0:02:36Wilson's Conservative predecessors had been the old Etonian aristocrat Sir Alec Douglas-Home,

0:02:36 > 0:02:41and before him another old Etonian, Harold Macmillan.

0:02:41 > 0:02:45Harold Wilson was cut from a very different cloth.

0:02:52 > 0:02:55Country estates and grouse moors were another world.

0:02:59 > 0:03:02Well, he were a Yorkshire lad, weren't he?

0:03:02 > 0:03:05Come from Huddersfield.

0:03:05 > 0:03:08I come from Keighley, which is not far away.

0:03:08 > 0:03:12And I think the Yorkshire thing in Harold was very meaningful.

0:03:12 > 0:03:15It meant a lot to him, as it always has to me.

0:03:15 > 0:03:20It means being rather tough, and where there's muck there's brass.

0:03:20 > 0:03:24I remember during the election campaign of 1964,

0:03:24 > 0:03:28we were en route across from Lancashire to Yorkshire,

0:03:28 > 0:03:31and he said, "Would you like to see the house where I was born?"

0:03:31 > 0:03:34And we said, "Oh, yes, please!"

0:03:34 > 0:03:39So we stopped en route outside his birthplace in Huddersfield -

0:03:39 > 0:03:42a very ordinary terraced house - and he stood there,

0:03:42 > 0:03:48and there was a certain humble pride and pleasure

0:03:48 > 0:03:52in feeling that he had risen from

0:03:52 > 0:03:55quite a humble background, with outstanding success.

0:03:55 > 0:03:59'James Harold Wilson, leader of the Labour party,

0:03:59 > 0:04:02'who could be the youngest Prime Minister for nearly 200 years,

0:04:02 > 0:04:04'and perhaps the first with a Yorkshire accent.'

0:04:04 > 0:04:08It was a breakthrough, that here was a grammar school boy,

0:04:08 > 0:04:11no public school boy, done very well, won a scholarship

0:04:11 > 0:04:13at University College Oxford,

0:04:13 > 0:04:17got a first in PPE, and here he was,

0:04:17 > 0:04:20the mascot, as it were, of the new Britain.

0:04:20 > 0:04:22A meritocrat.

0:04:24 > 0:04:28The self-made Yorkshireman, with his homespun pipe, Gannex raincoat

0:04:28 > 0:04:32and humble tastes, revolutionised the political landscape.

0:04:34 > 0:04:37He was, in some senses, quite deeply and naturally a man of the people.

0:04:37 > 0:04:41When I say that, I mean when he chose to spend his holidays in Scilly

0:04:41 > 0:04:45in a small seaside bungalow, that's what he wanted to do.

0:04:45 > 0:04:50He wasn't trying to persuade the media that he was an ordinary man.

0:04:50 > 0:04:52He just was an ordinary man.

0:04:52 > 0:04:55But he was aware that the image

0:04:55 > 0:04:59of the ordinary man with HP Sauce on his sausage,

0:04:59 > 0:05:01drinking his pint of beer...

0:05:03 > 0:05:04was helpful politically.

0:05:04 > 0:05:08- # White light- White light going messing up my mind

0:05:08 > 0:05:09# White light... #

0:05:09 > 0:05:16In the 1964 campaign Wilson told the British people that, after 13 years of misrule by old fogey Tories,

0:05:16 > 0:05:23he would revitalize the nation with a planned economy and modern, scientific thinking.

0:05:25 > 0:05:28We're restating our socialism

0:05:28 > 0:05:33in terms of the scientific revolution.

0:05:33 > 0:05:37I worked with him fairly closely on the manifesto.

0:05:37 > 0:05:41He made the speech about the white heat of technology.

0:05:41 > 0:05:45The Britain that will be forged in the white heat of this revolution

0:05:45 > 0:05:52will be no place for restrictive practices, or for outdated methods on either side of industry.

0:05:52 > 0:05:55He was mocked as someone who was going to put on a white coat

0:05:55 > 0:05:58and go round and modernise the economy with a blow lamp.

0:05:58 > 0:06:02Actually what he was saying was we are all going to be burned up

0:06:02 > 0:06:07by technical change unless we plan for it.

0:06:07 > 0:06:12NEWSREADER: 'The electorate has chosen.'

0:06:12 > 0:06:15This new man, with his new message, struck a chord...

0:06:15 > 0:06:21and Wilson won the October 1964 election, but only just.

0:06:21 > 0:06:24'A fantastically close result, but a majority for Harold Wilson,

0:06:24 > 0:06:28'When Wilson came in, in 1964...'

0:06:28 > 0:06:31that was the great sun-rising moment

0:06:31 > 0:06:36in the second half of the 20th century in Britain, other than,

0:06:36 > 0:06:39I suppose, Tony Blair in 1997. It was the kind of new dawn.

0:06:41 > 0:06:45The grammar school boy from Yorkshire was off to meet the Queen,

0:06:45 > 0:06:49who would ask him to form the first Labour government in 13 years.

0:06:49 > 0:06:52He was still in his underpants, as a matter of fact,

0:06:52 > 0:06:56changing to go to the palace. And I remember so vividly

0:06:56 > 0:07:02one of his colleagues said to him, "Harold, you can't go to the palace wearing red braces."

0:07:02 > 0:07:05And Harold turned round and said, "Why not?

0:07:05 > 0:07:09"I'm leader of the Labour party, why can't I wear red braces?" "But you can't do it.

0:07:09 > 0:07:11"You've got to meet the Queen."

0:07:11 > 0:07:12"But I haven't got any other braces."

0:07:12 > 0:07:17"OK," said this person, "I'll go out to a local shop

0:07:17 > 0:07:22"and buy you a new pair of black braces," which he did.

0:07:22 > 0:07:26Harold changed from his red braces to his black braces and off he went to the palace.

0:07:28 > 0:07:33The fusty old Etonian Tories had been a soft target for satirists,

0:07:33 > 0:07:36like the magazine Private Eye.

0:07:36 > 0:07:42The homespun but hi-tech Harold Wilson was harder to pin down.

0:07:42 > 0:07:45Their solution was to invent a diary,

0:07:45 > 0:07:47written by Mrs Wilson.

0:07:47 > 0:07:50It was, in a way, a reaction against the image

0:07:50 > 0:07:54that Wilson had projected of the super professional whizz kid,

0:07:54 > 0:07:57to make him a comic bungler,

0:07:57 > 0:08:04and his wife was a simple lady from the North Country, writing crap poems.

0:08:05 > 0:08:09An early entry in Mrs Wilson's Diary imagined their first encounter with

0:08:09 > 0:08:13the posh cook they'd inherited from Alec and Lady Douglas-Home.

0:08:13 > 0:08:16I had the terrible business of Mrs Green.

0:08:16 > 0:08:20There she was at the door, saying, "Oh, I'm so glad you've come,

0:08:20 > 0:08:25"I've got a lovely cote de veau garni aux epinards in the oven for you."

0:08:25 > 0:08:30"Thank you very much," Harold replied, "I think I'll just have some baked beans

0:08:30 > 0:08:34"and a glass of Wincarnis if you don't mind."

0:08:44 > 0:08:48Though the '64 election had been much closer than expected,

0:08:48 > 0:08:52the Conservative Party was terrified by Wilson's success.

0:08:57 > 0:09:02Soon afterwards, Sir Alec Douglas-Home withdrew to the grouse moor,

0:09:02 > 0:09:06and the party began the search for its own Harold Wilson.

0:09:08 > 0:09:13In July 1965, the man they alighted on was Edward Heath.

0:09:18 > 0:09:24Ironically, why Heath became leader of the Conservative Party in 1965

0:09:24 > 0:09:28was because the Conservatives decided they must have someone

0:09:28 > 0:09:30who would be able to deal with Wilson.

0:09:30 > 0:09:34Who was, if you like, although they wouldn't put it this way, a carbon copy of Wilson.

0:09:34 > 0:09:37So I think Wilson, in a way, created Heath.

0:09:37 > 0:09:42Heath would not have got the job if Wilson hadn't already become Prime Minister

0:09:42 > 0:09:43and leader of the Labour party.

0:09:43 > 0:09:48But it was instantly clear that Heath lacked Wilson's silver tongue.

0:09:48 > 0:09:52Good afternoon, Mr Heath, how are you feeling now it's all over?

0:09:52 > 0:09:53I'm feeling very pleased.

0:09:53 > 0:09:55- Are you a very happy man today?- Very.

0:09:55 > 0:09:57Are you going to celebrate tonight?

0:09:57 > 0:09:59I have a whole series of TV interviews tonight.

0:09:59 > 0:10:01Any chance of a holiday soon?

0:10:01 > 0:10:04Not yet, no. Too much work to be done.

0:10:04 > 0:10:05Thank you very much.

0:10:08 > 0:10:13Ted Heath was born only months after Harold Wilson in 1916,

0:10:13 > 0:10:16and though he hailed from the other side of the country,

0:10:16 > 0:10:18he grew up in seaside Kent.

0:10:18 > 0:10:21His background was every bit as ordinary.

0:10:21 > 0:10:25He didn't talk a great deal about his boyhood.

0:10:25 > 0:10:29His father was a small-town builder, his mother had been a ladies' maid,

0:10:29 > 0:10:33and he'd emerged from that quite humble background

0:10:33 > 0:10:38by working very hard, and his parents had sweated their guts out to give him a start in life.

0:10:38 > 0:10:43He'd achieved that start in life partly due to his parents, partly due to his own hard work.

0:10:43 > 0:10:47The funny thing was both men came from relatively humble backgrounds,

0:10:47 > 0:10:51they didn't have connections to anybody who could forward or help them.

0:10:51 > 0:10:54So it's hugely to their credit they did it on their own.

0:11:00 > 0:11:07Like Wilson, Heath was a grammar school boy who made it to Oxford University in the 1930s.

0:11:08 > 0:11:11He would win an organ scholarship to Balliol,

0:11:11 > 0:11:15but at first it was touch and go as to whether he'd get there.

0:11:15 > 0:11:20His parents weren't at all sure they, even with the help of Kent County Council,

0:11:20 > 0:11:24would be able to afford a son at Oxford.

0:11:24 > 0:11:26It was completely unknown territory to them.

0:11:28 > 0:11:34When they went to Oxford in their Hillman Minx piled high with his possessions that first autumn,

0:11:34 > 0:11:38it was the first time any of them had been to Oxford.

0:11:38 > 0:11:44Heath's future rival was a year ahead of him, just around the corner at Jesus College.

0:11:44 > 0:11:46It's said that Wilson used to occasionally

0:11:46 > 0:11:49go to concerts in which Heath was playing the organ.

0:11:49 > 0:11:56Well, he may have. I bet he did it pretty rarely, because he wasn't at all tuned in to classical music.

0:11:56 > 0:11:58They lived in different worlds.

0:11:58 > 0:12:06Heath quickly plunged into politics, Wilson had no time for these fripperies at all.

0:12:06 > 0:12:10I was at Balliol with Ted Heath from 1936 until the war broke out.

0:12:10 > 0:12:14And he was a year ahead of me so he was chairman of the junior common room

0:12:14 > 0:12:18when I was his secretary, and we got on very well together,

0:12:18 > 0:12:21although at that time I was in the Communist Party,

0:12:21 > 0:12:23and he of course, as always, was a Tory.

0:12:25 > 0:12:29Heath's conservatism went beyond politics,

0:12:29 > 0:12:33and there were early signs of a continuing awkwardness about the opposite sex.

0:12:33 > 0:12:40A mutual friend of ours had gone off to Banbury with his girlfriend, and Ted looked at me in alarm and said,

0:12:40 > 0:12:46"You don't mean to say they're...sleeping together?"

0:12:46 > 0:12:48I said, "I suppose so, but why not?"

0:12:48 > 0:12:54He said, "I can't imagine anybody in the Conservative Association doing that!"

0:12:58 > 0:13:02Unlike Heath, Wilson did not engage in university politics.

0:13:02 > 0:13:05His priority was academic success.

0:13:07 > 0:13:13He got a brilliant first, he got an alpha plus in economic theory, which was almost unheard of.

0:13:13 > 0:13:18They did share one tutor, who compared them, and said that Wilson

0:13:18 > 0:13:25was a brilliant analytical mind, profound thinker, Heath was a plodder.

0:13:29 > 0:13:33Wilson's quicksilver mind was a sign of things to come.

0:13:36 > 0:13:42Almost 3 decades after crossing paths at Oxford, on August 2nd 1965,

0:13:42 > 0:13:45Wilson and Heath faced each other

0:13:45 > 0:13:48in the House of Commons for the first time.

0:13:50 > 0:13:53No-one yet knew how their duel would play out.

0:13:53 > 0:13:56But expectations of Edward Heath,

0:13:56 > 0:13:59the new man the Tories had elected to match Wilson,

0:13:59 > 0:14:01were huge.

0:14:01 > 0:14:05It was a very new departure

0:14:05 > 0:14:10for the Conservative party, and he was elected with much enthusiasm.

0:14:10 > 0:14:14And, of course, my generation were all rather thrilled.

0:14:14 > 0:14:19The thought was that Alec Home, who was his predecessor,

0:14:19 > 0:14:24was just not up to taking Harold Wilson on on the floor of the house.

0:14:24 > 0:14:28Whereas Ted Heath was much more belligerent, or appeared to be

0:14:28 > 0:14:31much more belligerent at that stage, and would take Harold Wilson on.

0:14:31 > 0:14:35- That's the way to do it! - Oh, no, it isn't!

0:14:35 > 0:14:38- How do you do it then? - That's the way to do it! Ha-ha!

0:14:39 > 0:14:44Heath's performance at the despatch box was a devastating disappointment.

0:14:44 > 0:14:48Everyone expected him to be brilliant, to shatter Wilson's image.

0:14:48 > 0:14:53Instead, he was ponderous, he was lumbering, he piled in far too many facts.

0:14:53 > 0:15:00He failed to enthuse anyone, and he was outmanoeuvred and made to look silly by Wilson.

0:15:00 > 0:15:07Even when Heath tried a joke about Wilson's brand new Technology Ministry, he was smoothly trumped.

0:15:07 > 0:15:10The Minister of Technology is no tiger.

0:15:10 > 0:15:12That is now plain.

0:15:12 > 0:15:16The Prime Minister has put a tortoise in the tank.

0:15:18 > 0:15:20I was grateful to the right honourable gentleman

0:15:20 > 0:15:23for that memorable phrase about "the tortoise in the tank".

0:15:23 > 0:15:25I must say that I liked that.

0:15:25 > 0:15:31I liked it the first time I saw it in a Sunday Citizen cartoon on 27th June.

0:15:31 > 0:15:35I am sure the House will always be ready to hear the right honourable gentleman again,

0:15:35 > 0:15:38especially if he keeps reminding us of that phrase.

0:15:38 > 0:15:41LAUGHTER

0:15:41 > 0:15:43Wilson sort of waltzed round him.

0:15:43 > 0:15:44And he was just witty.

0:15:44 > 0:15:47Ted resented this.

0:15:47 > 0:15:49Ted was not good at being laughed at.

0:15:49 > 0:15:53Ted had this rather...at once, bland and pompous manner.

0:15:53 > 0:15:56It's difficult to be bland and pompous simultaneously,

0:15:56 > 0:15:58but Ted Heath managed it.

0:15:58 > 0:16:00I always felt he was brushing Harold aside, swatting him,

0:16:00 > 0:16:03but whilst he attempted, he always missed.

0:16:03 > 0:16:07Wilson, I think it's fair to say, he really despised Ted Heath.

0:16:07 > 0:16:10I can hear him saying to me down the years "Heath?

0:16:10 > 0:16:15"Ha! I could knock him around the room any time I like." This kind of thing.

0:16:15 > 0:16:19The personal animosity was palpable to MPs watching them.

0:16:19 > 0:16:23Once, in the House of Commons, there was a slanging match going on

0:16:23 > 0:16:26between the PM and the leader of the opposition,

0:16:26 > 0:16:30and Manny Shinwell chipped in rather wistfully from the back bench,

0:16:30 > 0:16:33"Is this a private matter, or can we join in?"

0:16:33 > 0:16:35I think that was the slight worry

0:16:35 > 0:16:42on the part of Heath's followers, that it was a private matter.

0:16:45 > 0:16:50Heath, perhaps, was not the attack weapon his supporters had hoped for.

0:16:50 > 0:16:54And his lack of ease came as a shock to them.

0:16:56 > 0:17:00One of his previous jobs had been chief whip,

0:17:00 > 0:17:04where he was remembered as being gregarious and sociable.

0:17:04 > 0:17:10But once elected leader of the opposition, he began to display an alarming brusqueness.

0:17:10 > 0:17:15Can you make any comment at all, Mr Heath? Nothing at all so far?

0:17:15 > 0:17:19Anthony Howard went to visit him on holiday in France

0:17:19 > 0:17:21for a Sunday Times feature.

0:17:21 > 0:17:28He greeted me without any great enthusiasm, and said something like, "I suppose you'd like a drink."

0:17:28 > 0:17:31I said, "That would be a good idea, thank you very much."

0:17:31 > 0:17:35"What would you like to have?" I said, "Well, is there any whisky?"

0:17:35 > 0:17:41So he went to a nasty plywood sideboard, opened the door,

0:17:41 > 0:17:49looked at a half bottle of whiskey, saw that it was pretty nearly empty and said, "You'd better have coffee."

0:17:49 > 0:17:52Heath may well have intended it as a joke.

0:17:52 > 0:17:59But, as his friends acknowledge, his mordant sense of humour was an acquired taste.

0:17:59 > 0:18:02Mentally, he was very sharp.

0:18:02 > 0:18:08Sharp is the word, because often he said things which were meant

0:18:08 > 0:18:10to be slightly humorous.

0:18:10 > 0:18:12He cracked a joke, rather like Prince Philip,

0:18:12 > 0:18:17he cracked a joke and was amazed when people took it very seriously.

0:18:17 > 0:18:19He had the best sense of humour,

0:18:19 > 0:18:24as well concealed as anyone's been able to conceal a sense of humour.

0:18:24 > 0:18:31But what was so dementing is his ability to present himself in most angular possible form.

0:18:31 > 0:18:36Gave one homicidal feelings about him quite often!

0:18:36 > 0:18:41You're not even old enough to remember what was going on when we came to power!

0:18:41 > 0:18:45There was... There was food rationing!

0:18:45 > 0:18:47And sweets rationing!

0:18:47 > 0:18:51You were just old enough to eat sweets, and you had to queue up with a little coupon to buy them!

0:18:51 > 0:18:54That was the situation when we came into power!

0:18:54 > 0:19:00It was actually a wooden leg that he wore all his life.

0:19:00 > 0:19:05The more he latched onto the things that he wanted to do in life,

0:19:05 > 0:19:10the more the wooden leg, this wooden manner, came into play.

0:19:10 > 0:19:14We said, "Relax, be yourself!"

0:19:14 > 0:19:17It didn't... The advice never really went down well,

0:19:17 > 0:19:20because I think he wasn't sure what himself was.

0:19:20 > 0:19:26He didn't have a ready-made persona, he didn't have a switch which he could turn on in the way that

0:19:26 > 0:19:29many politicians did, Harold Wilson certainly did.

0:19:31 > 0:19:36The image-conscious Wilson was always ready to milk the latest trend.

0:19:36 > 0:19:39In 1965, it was the new age of pop.

0:19:48 > 0:19:51Thank you very much for giving us this silver heart,

0:19:51 > 0:19:55but I still think you should've given one to good old Mr Wilson.

0:19:55 > 0:19:57LAUGHTER

0:20:04 > 0:20:09Wilson had entered Downing Street promising a whirlwind of activity,

0:20:09 > 0:20:13even comparing himself to America's most recent political hero.

0:20:13 > 0:20:17What I think we're going to need is something like

0:20:17 > 0:20:20what President Kennedy had when he came in

0:20:20 > 0:20:27after years of stagnation in the United States, he had a programme of 100 days of dynamic action.

0:20:27 > 0:20:31It was felt that the Government could do more by greater

0:20:31 > 0:20:33intervention when Labour came in.

0:20:33 > 0:20:37So almost every month there would be some form of tinkering

0:20:37 > 0:20:44with the economy to try to get the level of activity exactly right.

0:20:44 > 0:20:49I was secretary of the Budget Committee at the time and we used to be almost in constant session.

0:20:51 > 0:20:55In spite of his awkwardness, Heath could sometimes score a laugh...

0:20:55 > 0:20:59and Wilson's hyperactivity gave him an early chance.

0:20:59 > 0:21:04'Comrades, we have managed to increase our productivity

0:21:04 > 0:21:08'in the Cabinet - a budget in March, a budget in May, a budget in July.'

0:21:08 > 0:21:09LAUGHTER

0:21:15 > 0:21:18But despite his much-vaunted economic planning,

0:21:18 > 0:21:24Wilson, from the very beginning, found himself at the mercy of events.

0:21:24 > 0:21:27He was buffeted by pressure on the pound,

0:21:27 > 0:21:30which then was set at a fixed exchange rate.

0:21:31 > 0:21:34The obvious solution was to devalue it.

0:21:34 > 0:21:37But Wilson was haunted by the previous Labour government's

0:21:37 > 0:21:40devaluation in 1948.

0:21:42 > 0:21:45It was a very odd thing in those days that we regarded

0:21:45 > 0:21:48the devaluation of the pound as almost a test

0:21:48 > 0:21:50of virtue in politics,

0:21:50 > 0:21:54and so devaluation was almost a sin...

0:21:54 > 0:21:58and that was absolutely ridiculous.

0:22:00 > 0:22:05While the weak pound was the rod across Wilson's back, Heath's -

0:22:05 > 0:22:07from the very outset -

0:22:07 > 0:22:10was the whisperers in his own party.

0:22:11 > 0:22:13Private Eye had named him The Grocer.

0:22:13 > 0:22:16Heath had once been president of the Board Of Trade.

0:22:16 > 0:22:20But for large sections of the Tory Party, that encapsulated

0:22:20 > 0:22:24a disdain of the grammar-school boy with strange-sounding vowels...

0:22:24 > 0:22:26who couldn't even beat his opponent.

0:22:28 > 0:22:32The stupid people turned on him and began to mock his background

0:22:32 > 0:22:36and mock the past that he came from.

0:22:36 > 0:22:40"That's the sort of thing you get when you elect a grammar-school boy."

0:22:40 > 0:22:47I knew quite a grand Tory lady, who was the wife of the chairman of the Party, Lord Latham.

0:22:47 > 0:22:51I remember her saying to me, "What we all have to face about Ted,

0:22:51 > 0:22:54"it's not his fault, poor dear, but he hasn't got any manners."

0:22:55 > 0:22:59Heath's highly personal duel with Wilson,

0:22:59 > 0:23:03and the savaging he was receiving in the House of Commons,

0:23:03 > 0:23:05began to have a significant psychological impact.

0:23:08 > 0:23:09He retreated into his shell,

0:23:09 > 0:23:14comfortable only with his trusted circle of close advisers and friends.

0:23:14 > 0:23:20It was politics at its juvenile-playpen worst.

0:23:20 > 0:23:24What I didn't realize, until looking back on it,

0:23:24 > 0:23:30it made an appalling and searing and lasting impression on Ted.

0:23:31 > 0:23:34Wilson was oozing confidence.

0:23:34 > 0:23:39In spring 1966, with his new opponent posing so little threat,

0:23:39 > 0:23:45his highly-tuned political antennae sensed that the time was ripe to increase his slender majority,

0:23:45 > 0:23:48before events began to overtake him.

0:23:48 > 0:23:52Harold timed it exactly. I remember talking to Roy Jenkins,

0:23:52 > 0:23:55saying, "When is the election going to come?"

0:23:55 > 0:23:56and Roy saying, "Don't you and I worry about it.

0:23:56 > 0:24:01"We can do some things. The man who will chose the election date

0:24:01 > 0:24:05"to the 'nth degree, perfect on that date, is Harold Wilson."

0:24:07 > 0:24:12For Harold Wilson, unlike Heath, elections, and the razzamatazz surrounding them,

0:24:12 > 0:24:18were the stuff of life, ever since he'd first entered Parliament in 1945.

0:24:18 > 0:24:22He was political to his fingertips.

0:24:22 > 0:24:25I once said to him... I was talking politics to him, and he said that

0:24:25 > 0:24:27it had always been his worry

0:24:27 > 0:24:33in 1953 when the King died, he feared that Winston Churchill

0:24:33 > 0:24:38would take advantage of that and call a quick general election.

0:24:38 > 0:24:42I said, "I was too young to think like that in those days, Harold."

0:24:42 > 0:24:46"Were you? I've thought like that since the day I was born."

0:24:46 > 0:24:51The 1966 election trail threw Wilson and Heath's very different styles

0:24:51 > 0:24:56onto streets and TV screens across the country.

0:24:56 > 0:25:01That's where the mismatch between Harold and Ted came out.

0:25:01 > 0:25:04One, the political arc lamps

0:25:04 > 0:25:11came on full at the glimmer of being seen by outsiders

0:25:11 > 0:25:12or the pubic, whereas Ted...

0:25:12 > 0:25:15the arc lights tended to go off.

0:25:15 > 0:25:18It was tragically ludicrous.

0:25:20 > 0:25:25'The first point I want to make is, yesterday there was yet another warning from

0:25:25 > 0:25:32'the Building Societies Association that the mortgage rates must rise...

0:25:32 > 0:25:34"again..."

0:25:35 > 0:25:41Now, just to break for a moment before I turn to the other subject I want to deal with...

0:25:41 > 0:25:44The half time scores are as follows...

0:25:44 > 0:25:47LAUGHTER

0:25:47 > 0:25:53It was a terrible campaign. We were fighting a losing battle the whole way through the campaign.

0:25:54 > 0:25:57Wilson sat back and enjoyed the ride,

0:25:57 > 0:26:00rarely deigning even to engage with his opponent...

0:26:00 > 0:26:06'After all these words, what has been the result in productivity.

0:26:06 > 0:26:08'Just 1 per cent.

0:26:08 > 0:26:11'One miserable one per cent.

0:26:13 > 0:26:15'Well, is Mr Wilson proud of it?

0:26:15 > 0:26:17'Apparently not.

0:26:17 > 0:26:19- '< He is. - You think he is?

0:26:19 > 0:26:21'Well, ask him why he doesn't come onto television

0:26:21 > 0:26:23'and face me there and argue it out?!'

0:26:23 > 0:26:24APPLAUSE

0:26:24 > 0:26:29Harold would never put him on an equal level with him.

0:26:29 > 0:26:36He'd never agree to a television debate or anything like that with him.

0:26:36 > 0:26:41Wilson was a masterly electioneerer, partly by

0:26:41 > 0:26:46ostentatiously appearing everywhere with his wife, therefore making it perfectly clear that poor Heath

0:26:46 > 0:26:48as a bachelor didn't understand what was going on.

0:26:49 > 0:26:54Heath's bachelor status was another gift to the whisperers.

0:26:54 > 0:26:57In private,, Wilson relished alluding to it.

0:26:57 > 0:27:05When he made the speech once about the importance of family, Harold's only remark was,

0:27:05 > 0:27:09"Those who don't play the game shouldn't make the rules."

0:27:09 > 0:27:12All these rumours about how he might be homosexual,

0:27:12 > 0:27:17totally without foundation as far as I'm concerned, but they certainly swirled around, these rumours.

0:27:17 > 0:27:22My feeling, for what it's worth, though I'm not medically qualified, is that he's one of these people -

0:27:22 > 0:27:26they do exist - he was pretty asexual, it just didn't interest him.

0:27:30 > 0:27:33'Let's say we average them out to around 4.5 per cent.

0:27:33 > 0:27:36'which is the average of these four national polls,

0:27:36 > 0:27:38'pointing to something like a 150 majority...'

0:27:38 > 0:27:46On March the 31st 1966, in the first of their four general election battles,

0:27:46 > 0:27:48Wilson humiliated Heath.

0:27:48 > 0:27:53Labour's majority over the Conservatives was well over a hundred.

0:27:55 > 0:28:00In the summer of '66, it seemed that Britain was rocking.

0:28:00 > 0:28:02# Sunshine came softly

0:28:02 > 0:28:04# Through my

0:28:04 > 0:28:07# Window today

0:28:08 > 0:28:12# Could have tripped out easy

0:28:12 > 0:28:13# But I've a-changed my ways... #

0:28:15 > 0:28:20England, for the first time, even managed to win the World Cup.

0:28:22 > 0:28:26England's victory in the 1966 World Cup is now taken as

0:28:26 > 0:28:28a kind of high point of the 1960s,

0:28:28 > 0:28:31so we think that '66 is the culmination

0:28:31 > 0:28:34of swinging London and the optimism and change and whatnot,

0:28:34 > 0:28:38but I think there is a nice coincidence, because the day after England's victory

0:28:38 > 0:28:41in the World Cup final is the day that the Colonial Office,

0:28:41 > 0:28:48the very symbol of British imperialism and British power, closes its doors for the last time.

0:28:48 > 0:28:51We won the war, but at great cost.

0:28:51 > 0:28:56We were living with the end of Empire and there were people about,

0:28:56 > 0:29:01including senior civil servants, who saw what we were doing as the management of decline.

0:29:01 > 0:29:08Wilson was much much closer to those who thought we were in the business of managing decline than Heath was.

0:29:08 > 0:29:12I think Heath had greater optimism.

0:29:16 > 0:29:21Once again, it was the weak pound that seemed the overwhelming symbol of decline.

0:29:23 > 0:29:25In the autumn of 1967,

0:29:25 > 0:29:32Wilson and his chancellor, James Callaghan, were finally forced into devaluation.

0:29:32 > 0:29:39What concerned Wilson more than anything was how to present this surrender to the British people.

0:29:39 > 0:29:43That morning, I'd been rung by a brother-in-law from Leeds,

0:29:43 > 0:29:47and he had said,

0:29:47 > 0:29:51"Is my money in the bank going to be devalued?

0:29:51 > 0:29:55"Will it be worth as much as it was yesterday?"

0:29:55 > 0:30:00So when Harold was doing the "pound in your pocket or in your purse",

0:30:00 > 0:30:02I suggested that he added "in your bank".

0:30:02 > 0:30:05Wilson made the infamous statement,

0:30:05 > 0:30:08implying nothing had really changed.

0:30:08 > 0:30:13'From now on, the pound abroad is worth 14% or so less

0:30:13 > 0:30:15'in terms of other currencies.

0:30:15 > 0:30:19'That doesn't mean, of course, that the pound here in Britain,

0:30:19 > 0:30:22'in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued.'

0:30:22 > 0:30:25I was an accomplice in that error, but it was

0:30:25 > 0:30:28an error meant to reassure people,

0:30:28 > 0:30:30however...

0:30:32 > 0:30:35..It has lived on in infamy ever since.

0:30:35 > 0:30:37CROWD: Wilson out! Wilson out!

0:30:37 > 0:30:40For Heath, devaluation was an affront.

0:30:42 > 0:30:44He was extremely patriotic.

0:30:44 > 0:30:46When Britain devalued the pound

0:30:46 > 0:30:51in 1967, he thought this was a great humiliation for us

0:30:51 > 0:30:52and said so.

0:30:52 > 0:30:55Whereas, actually, economically there was a lot to be said for it,

0:30:55 > 0:31:00but he forgot the economics and was just interested in the blow to our prestige.

0:31:00 > 0:31:06'As Mr Wilson himself said a few years ago -

0:31:06 > 0:31:08"Devaluation is an acknowledgment of defeat.

0:31:10 > 0:31:13"Last Saturday night was defeat."

0:31:16 > 0:31:18Devaluation,

0:31:18 > 0:31:19and the way it was presented,

0:31:19 > 0:31:23was a psychological turning point in the Heath-Wilson duel.

0:31:23 > 0:31:27# I know when I've had enough... #

0:31:27 > 0:31:31For Wilson, it was the first real defeat.

0:31:32 > 0:31:36He never regained full mastery of his colleagues...

0:31:36 > 0:31:39and in the country beyond, he was never again as trusted.

0:31:42 > 0:31:46For Heath, it was a vital stimulant.

0:31:46 > 0:31:51Now more than ever he saw his mission as ridding the nation of Harold Wilson...

0:31:51 > 0:31:58a man he deemed an unprincipled creature, who put style over substance every time.

0:31:58 > 0:32:01Essentially, the great difference between them

0:32:01 > 0:32:04was that Ted saw himself and felt himself to be

0:32:04 > 0:32:07an outstanding, clean,

0:32:07 > 0:32:11clear, uninfluenceable,

0:32:11 > 0:32:13public servant, working for nation's good,

0:32:13 > 0:32:18and he therefore thought of Wilson as being a scraggy politician.

0:32:18 > 0:32:24Ted Heath would not have thought of himself as being a politician at all, despite having been chief whip.

0:32:24 > 0:32:26Ted and Harold

0:32:26 > 0:32:32had totally different approaches to the work of politics.

0:32:32 > 0:32:33Um...

0:32:33 > 0:32:37WORK of politics would have been Ted's attitude.

0:32:37 > 0:32:45The GAME of politics was more Harold's natural habitat.

0:32:46 > 0:32:52Ted used to get irritated by the behaviour of some MPs in the House.

0:32:54 > 0:32:55Harold would encourage it.

0:32:55 > 0:33:02Harold once described the Tory MP Bernard Braine as a misnomer.

0:33:02 > 0:33:04Ted would never have thought of something like that.

0:33:04 > 0:33:08Heath was a serious man, believed that Wilson stood for everything

0:33:08 > 0:33:10that was wrong in British public life.

0:33:10 > 0:33:15Gimmicks, government by press leak, all the rest of it.

0:33:15 > 0:33:19He really morally disapproved of Wilson. I think that's true.

0:33:19 > 0:33:23It wasn't just a political disagreement. He thought that Wilson

0:33:23 > 0:33:29symbolized, and was the emblem, of everything that had gone wrong with Britain.

0:33:33 > 0:33:40Heath's principled stiffness and Wilson's political adroitness was one key contrast.

0:33:40 > 0:33:43Another was how they saw the world beyond Britain.

0:33:48 > 0:33:51Wilson was a classic, little England,

0:33:51 > 0:33:52introverted patriot.

0:33:57 > 0:34:00He was only comfortable at home, really.

0:34:00 > 0:34:02When he went abroad to conferences,

0:34:02 > 0:34:05he would come back as quickly as possible,

0:34:05 > 0:34:07and look for excuses to come back.

0:34:07 > 0:34:12For his food, he loved all the traditional English foods.

0:34:12 > 0:34:16He loved beans on toast, he loved HP sauce.

0:34:16 > 0:34:19He once said to me, "I do go on holiday abroad,

0:34:19 > 0:34:21"I go to the Scillies!"

0:34:21 > 0:34:26And that for him was about the outermost Siberia of his imagination.

0:34:28 > 0:34:32Heath was every bit as patriotic,

0:34:32 > 0:34:36but he was an internationalist, with an appetite for seeing the world.

0:34:37 > 0:34:40This went right back to his time as an undergraduate.

0:34:43 > 0:34:47Oddly enough, we both cycled through Germany

0:34:47 > 0:34:49in those days when Hitler was there.

0:34:50 > 0:34:57I think all of us who did journeys through Europe before the war were enormously influenced

0:34:57 > 0:35:02by it because, of course, of the terrible things that happened to Europe during the war itself.

0:35:07 > 0:35:10He went to Germany as a soldier,

0:35:10 > 0:35:15as an officer, and he saw the wreck and the ruin caused by the bombing.

0:35:15 > 0:35:18He'd fought in the war. He'd been part of it.

0:35:21 > 0:35:26Heath had a distinguished military record in the Second World War.

0:35:26 > 0:35:31Wilson had been a civil servant on the Home Front, organizing coal stocks...

0:35:31 > 0:35:34a vital role but somehow not quite the same.

0:35:34 > 0:35:39It did leave...not a scar,

0:35:39 > 0:35:42but he was always conscious of the fact

0:35:42 > 0:35:44that he hadn't fought.

0:35:44 > 0:35:48He was rather resentful about the fact that Heath got one up on him that way.

0:35:48 > 0:35:51I think it did change people's attitudes.

0:35:51 > 0:35:54I mean, I don't suppose for one moment Harold Wilson

0:35:54 > 0:35:59didn't feel exactly the same about preventing a world war,

0:35:59 > 0:36:03but I think it coloured one's vision of things.

0:36:04 > 0:36:10Ted Heath's wartime experience led to a lifetime ambition for a united Europe,

0:36:10 > 0:36:15which could never again tear itself apart, with Britain at its heart.

0:36:17 > 0:36:23The vision of a united Europe, to him, was civilisation.

0:36:23 > 0:36:25It wasn't just politics.

0:36:25 > 0:36:29It was the beginning of teaching the planet how human beings ought to live.

0:36:29 > 0:36:31It was almost as big a vision as that.

0:36:36 > 0:36:40Back in 1963, Heath had spearheaded Britain's first attempt -

0:36:40 > 0:36:43by the Tory prime minister, Harold Macmillan -

0:36:43 > 0:36:46to join what was then called the Common Market.

0:36:49 > 0:36:54But it was rebuffed by the French president, Charles de Gaulle.

0:36:55 > 0:36:59In 1967, Harold Wilson decided he'd have a go.

0:36:59 > 0:37:02But for reasons rather different from Heath's.

0:37:04 > 0:37:07I think Harold wanted to be a member of the community...

0:37:07 > 0:37:12not for the rather grander reasons, or he thought, the grand design.

0:37:12 > 0:37:16Harold was an economist. He regarded Europe as economies of scale.

0:37:16 > 0:37:21I guess he decided that, on balance, it was in Britain's interest to be in.

0:37:21 > 0:37:26The Labour Party had opposed the Heath-Macmillan attempt to join.

0:37:26 > 0:37:30Wilson always had to balance his priority to keep his party united

0:37:30 > 0:37:34against its traditional fear of joining Europe.

0:37:34 > 0:37:37Harold's principle object in politics

0:37:37 > 0:37:40was to keep the Labour Party together.

0:37:40 > 0:37:46That's really like putting Humpty Dumpty together after he's fallen off the wall.

0:37:46 > 0:37:49So he had to duck and dive and weave

0:37:49 > 0:37:53and go with the flow, sometimes when the flow was bad,

0:37:53 > 0:38:01but he never lost sight of the fact that we'd end up in Europe one day.

0:38:04 > 0:38:06The next 10 years, the next 20 years,

0:38:06 > 0:38:09the unity of Europe is going to be forged.

0:38:09 > 0:38:12Heath was so anxious that Britain should go into Europe,

0:38:12 > 0:38:17but I think he was slightly horrified when it looked, at one moment,

0:38:17 > 0:38:21as if Wilson might be the man who would bring it off.

0:38:22 > 0:38:24Heath needn't have worried.

0:38:24 > 0:38:29The French President de Gaulle once again vetoed Britain's entry.

0:38:32 > 0:38:33For Wilson, the timing was dreadful.

0:38:35 > 0:38:39The veto came just one week after the trauma of devaluation.

0:38:40 > 0:38:45At the close of 1967, his administration was on the skids.

0:38:45 > 0:38:48Things weren't going to get much better in 1968.

0:38:48 > 0:38:50# Fire

0:38:51 > 0:38:52# I'll take you to burn... #

0:38:54 > 0:38:58As revolutions and riots erupted across the globe,

0:38:58 > 0:39:02both Heath and Wilson had their own explosive issues to face at home.

0:39:08 > 0:39:12For Heath, it was troubles with his own party again...

0:39:12 > 0:39:15this time from the firebrand Enoch Powell,

0:39:15 > 0:39:18who was exploiting the racial tensions emerging across Britain.

0:39:18 > 0:39:22I told Mr Powell that he could not remain a member of the Shadow Cabinet

0:39:22 > 0:39:25because of the inflammatory nature of his speech in Birmingham.

0:39:29 > 0:39:33Wilson deftly managed to keep Britain out of the political minefield

0:39:33 > 0:39:38that was Vietnam, despite pleas from the Americans.

0:39:38 > 0:39:39'Phantom F4s... Napalm.'

0:39:40 > 0:39:43But he faced an internal war of his own,

0:39:43 > 0:39:46with Labour's traditional allies... the trade unions.

0:39:46 > 0:39:52'Strikes, especially unofficial strikes, are a major factor in Britain's economic difficulties.'

0:39:52 > 0:39:57The unions would be both Wilson's, and later Heath's, running sore.

0:40:02 > 0:40:07Today one might say that banking or finance is the biggest problem for prime ministers.

0:40:07 > 0:40:10At that time, it was clearly the trade unions.

0:40:10 > 0:40:16In both cases, this huge interest didn't really see itself as part of society.

0:40:16 > 0:40:19It saw itself as getting the most it could out of society for itself,

0:40:19 > 0:40:26but not contributing to society, and both Harold Wilson and Ted Heath tried to bring

0:40:26 > 0:40:30the trade union leaders into, as it were, sharing the responsibility.

0:40:30 > 0:40:35CROWD CHANTS: Wilson out! Castle out!

0:40:35 > 0:40:39Wilson and his employment secretary, Barbara Castle, tried to bring in new laws

0:40:39 > 0:40:44to curb the unions and make them more democratic.

0:40:44 > 0:40:47Their plan was quickly sabotaged by their Cabinet colleagues.

0:40:48 > 0:40:51THEY CHANT: White paper out! White paper out!

0:40:51 > 0:40:59After yet another failure, Wilson's prospects by the beginning of 1969 were pretty bleak.

0:41:02 > 0:41:04I started at Number 10

0:41:04 > 0:41:08in January 1st 1969,

0:41:08 > 0:41:14and Harold was 23 points behind

0:41:14 > 0:41:20in the opinion polls at that time. And he said to me quite early on,

0:41:20 > 0:41:24"Joe, what can you offer me?" I said, "Complacency,

0:41:24 > 0:41:27"because you've got too much of the other - hysteria!"

0:41:32 > 0:41:36Violence in Northern Ireland, with British troops deployed on the streets,

0:41:36 > 0:41:41added to the feeling that Britain was going off the rails,

0:41:41 > 0:41:46and that the man at the wheel, Harold Wilson, was powerless to stop it.

0:41:54 > 0:41:56Heath was looking more comfortable at the helm.

0:41:59 > 0:42:01He'd become an ocean-going sailor,

0:42:01 > 0:42:03with great success.

0:42:04 > 0:42:10In the last days of 1969, he even won the highly-prestigious Sydney-Hobart yacht race.

0:42:13 > 0:42:18That, I think, improved his image enormously in the country and also with the Party.

0:42:18 > 0:42:23All the old grey beards who were very worried about him sailing a boat at all,

0:42:23 > 0:42:27suddenly became enamoured with Ted Heath, about how wonderful he was.

0:42:27 > 0:42:31I was there to arrange the parties and the receptions and so on, in case he won.

0:42:31 > 0:42:35And he did win, and we had a great time in Sydney.

0:42:35 > 0:42:38And, of course, it was politically advantageous.

0:42:38 > 0:42:41It did ring a bell in people's minds because it was unexpected.

0:42:44 > 0:42:46Wilson was being upstaged.

0:42:46 > 0:42:50Mrs Wilson's Diary imagined him plotting his counter-strike.

0:42:52 > 0:42:59"Harold, seated at the controls, wearing antique goggles and a balaclava helmet,

0:42:59 > 0:43:01"with an Isodora Duncan scarf,

0:43:01 > 0:43:04"gave Mr Kaufman the thumbs-up sign to remove the chocks.

0:43:04 > 0:43:08"Then, with a cry of, 'This'll show Heath where he gets off!',

0:43:08 > 0:43:12"he piloted the aircraft some 200 yards over the bumpy grass

0:43:12 > 0:43:15"and turned with a roar of its tiny engine to begin the take-off.

0:43:15 > 0:43:19"As the engine thundered to full throttle, there was a dramatic explosion

0:43:19 > 0:43:25"and Harold was catapulted forward with a despairing cry, to land with a splash."

0:43:30 > 0:43:37But just when Heath had seemed to be finally outdoing Wilson, something curious happened.

0:43:40 > 0:43:43Their political fortunes went into abrupt reverse.

0:43:45 > 0:43:50The economy was improving under a capable new chancellor, Roy Jenkins.

0:43:51 > 0:43:54Somehow, the country seemed more at ease.

0:43:54 > 0:43:57Life wasn't so bad after all.

0:43:59 > 0:44:05The opinion polls began to show that Wilson was staging a remarkable recovery.

0:44:05 > 0:44:10As the summer of 1970 approached, he had a double-digit lead.

0:44:10 > 0:44:16For Heath, the infuriation was that it continued to seem all about style, not substance,

0:44:16 > 0:44:20particularly in the cockpit of the House of Commons.

0:44:20 > 0:44:24He used to say to me in moments of almost despair,

0:44:24 > 0:44:26"What's gone wrong? Why can't I get it right?

0:44:26 > 0:44:28"Why can't I perform better?"

0:44:28 > 0:44:32I think he found it very very difficult.

0:44:32 > 0:44:39The more difficult he found it, the worse it really became, because he became even more screwed up,

0:44:39 > 0:44:42but he never got it right until the last appearance

0:44:42 > 0:44:46before the general election in 1970,

0:44:46 > 0:44:51and on that occasion he absolutely walloped Harold Wilson - so much so

0:44:51 > 0:44:55that he said to me afterwards, "Why have I only just started doing this?

0:44:55 > 0:44:58"I ought to have been doing this for four years

0:44:58 > 0:45:02"and the Party ought to have been supporting me for four years", but hadn't.

0:45:06 > 0:45:10Wilson sensed that the time was ripe for the next round with Heath.

0:45:10 > 0:45:12'The battle is on.

0:45:12 > 0:45:15The Prime Minister has taken the plunge -

0:45:15 > 0:45:17a general election on June 18th.

0:45:17 > 0:45:24When we started the election, we were running about 10-12% behind the Labour Party,

0:45:24 > 0:45:30having moved from, in the space of about three or four months, from being in a commanding position

0:45:30 > 0:45:33to being in this very terrible position,

0:45:33 > 0:45:37and so it looked as if it was going to be awful.

0:45:41 > 0:45:46The 1970 election was the epicentre of the Heath-Wilson duel.

0:45:47 > 0:45:50For Heath, it was personal.

0:45:51 > 0:45:55'What I am going to create is a new style of government,

0:45:55 > 0:45:59'which is honest, well thought out. and which takes account of

0:45:59 > 0:46:03'the long term, away with all the short-term gimmickry and instant government

0:46:03 > 0:46:05'which we've had for the last few years.'

0:46:05 > 0:46:10Ted wanted not just a change of policy, but a change of style,

0:46:10 > 0:46:14and that was all a dig at what he thought was the sheer flippancy of Wilson.

0:46:14 > 0:46:18But Heath's serious message seemed to be

0:46:18 > 0:46:20missing the mark...once again.

0:46:20 > 0:46:24I was sat on by people...

0:46:24 > 0:46:28from all over the country, who said that Heath was the drawback,

0:46:28 > 0:46:35the grocer's mind, the lack of vision, the inarticulateness.

0:46:35 > 0:46:39The candidates were tearing the photograph of the leader

0:46:39 > 0:46:45out of the manifesto before putting it through people's doors when canvassing,

0:46:45 > 0:46:48because it was... Ted was a complete turn-off.

0:46:48 > 0:46:54There was a newlywed couple in a restaurant, I remember, and everybody was waiting,

0:46:54 > 0:47:01the press, to see if Ted would go and talk to the couple and wish them well, and he didn't.

0:47:01 > 0:47:02He didn't for about a quarter of an hour.

0:47:02 > 0:47:08He sat there, rather solidly eating whatever he was eating, and then as soon as the

0:47:08 > 0:47:13press had gone, he went up, and went over, and was very nice

0:47:13 > 0:47:16and jolly, and they were impressed,

0:47:16 > 0:47:21but he had completely missed the boat as far as the press was concerned, who scribbled,

0:47:21 > 0:47:24"He can't even be bothered to pass the time of day with a newlywed couple."

0:47:24 > 0:47:27This kind of episode was constantly happening.

0:47:28 > 0:47:31Wilson, by contrast, was avoiding the issues...

0:47:31 > 0:47:33but glad-handing the people

0:47:33 > 0:47:36Prime Minister, you haven't actually kissed any babies yet.

0:47:36 > 0:47:38You've come close sometimes.

0:47:38 > 0:47:44- Why did you chose this style of campaign?- I wanted to take the campaign to the people.

0:47:44 > 0:47:49Not to ask them to come, especially on hot summer evenings or weekends,

0:47:49 > 0:47:51to city halls, miles from where they live.

0:47:54 > 0:47:59Wilson had treated the election as if it was a kind of coronation.

0:47:59 > 0:48:00He went round the country waving at people.

0:48:00 > 0:48:03He didn't really make any speeches or anything like that.

0:48:05 > 0:48:10Harold had got the idea, he'd seen the Queen doing walkabouts,

0:48:10 > 0:48:17so he concluded that his role would be to be seen around the place, being filmed everywhere.

0:48:17 > 0:48:21He saw himself as being above politics, which he wasn't.

0:48:21 > 0:48:23You can't be a prime minister and above politics.

0:48:26 > 0:48:30And you couldn't play the part of the Queen, which he rather hoped he might!

0:48:30 > 0:48:33It's Theresa's birthday, shall we sing for her?

0:48:33 > 0:48:36# Happy birthday to you

0:48:36 > 0:48:38# Happy birthday to you... #

0:48:38 > 0:48:42Rather in desperation, because Wilson was doing so well

0:48:42 > 0:48:44with his walkabouts, we put it in

0:48:44 > 0:48:49and I remember, in Chatham and Rochester, we did that.

0:48:52 > 0:48:58We did it in Edinburgh, and then we gained confidence, and he gained confidence...

0:48:58 > 0:49:00and he was rather good at it.

0:49:00 > 0:49:04'He's having to do, rather belatedly, what I started doing a week last Sunday.

0:49:04 > 0:49:06'I'm sure he'll be encouraged to know

0:49:06 > 0:49:11'that I'm 29 marginals ahead of him. He'll have to get round at quite a rate to catch up.'

0:49:14 > 0:49:16'It doesn't bother me what he says.

0:49:16 > 0:49:18'I've covered practically all the marginals in this country

0:49:18 > 0:49:22'with our party work. I'd covered them all in-between elections.

0:49:22 > 0:49:26'I've been speaking at meetings with workers from all the marginals.'

0:49:27 > 0:49:30Some of the walkabouts were terrible.

0:49:30 > 0:49:36I always remember one in Norwich, in which I had to participate.

0:49:36 > 0:49:40We chose a half-day holiday anyhow.

0:49:40 > 0:49:45We walked down a street in Norwich, a long street in Norwich

0:49:45 > 0:49:49and there was absolutely no-one there at all!

0:49:49 > 0:49:50There wasn't a sign of anyone.

0:49:52 > 0:49:57It seemed that Harold Wilson was about to humiliate his rival once again.

0:49:57 > 0:50:00And he was enjoying every minute of it.

0:50:00 > 0:50:05Perhaps you could point to... the last election, in which

0:50:05 > 0:50:10a party won the election

0:50:10 > 0:50:15with its leading trailing behind the other leader in the personal ratings,

0:50:15 > 0:50:20particularly if you can find one where he was trailing nearly 2-1 behind the other leader.

0:50:20 > 0:50:23I mean, we had a 14% lead in the Daily Mail

0:50:23 > 0:50:28the Friday before polling day, but then over the weekend,

0:50:28 > 0:50:32and with the trade figures and everything else, it all fell apart.

0:50:34 > 0:50:38Three days before the country went to the polls, the latest balance of trade figures -

0:50:38 > 0:50:41then critical indicator of how Britain's economy was doing -

0:50:41 > 0:50:43were released.

0:50:44 > 0:50:47For the first time in months, they were in deficit.

0:50:48 > 0:50:53Then, on election eve, one opinion poll put the Heath just ahead.

0:50:55 > 0:50:57The experts said it was a rogue poll.

0:50:58 > 0:51:01A very famous political correspondent Robert Carvel

0:51:01 > 0:51:04said on the World at One, "The opinion poll's phoney.

0:51:04 > 0:51:07"Take it from me, Labour is home and dry."

0:51:07 > 0:51:09"I went to the Tory press conference this morning

0:51:09 > 0:51:13"and saw Mr Heath fighting for the soul of the Conservative Party in defeat."

0:51:15 > 0:51:19We waited then for the results to come in and the first result

0:51:19 > 0:51:22that came in showed quite a swing towards us,

0:51:22 > 0:51:26we could hardly believe our eyes when we saw the results coming in!

0:51:26 > 0:51:31David Howell, Conservative - 27,203...

0:51:31 > 0:51:37We drove back to London, and the radio kept on producing the most extraordinary news.

0:51:37 > 0:51:43We were winning! We were not winning just this seat and that seat, we were winning

0:51:43 > 0:51:44the whole damned election...

0:51:50 > 0:51:53..I was delighted. I was delighted not so much because Labour was losing, but because

0:51:53 > 0:51:56all those clever, well-informed people

0:51:56 > 0:52:02who had been with us for the last fortnight were going to have to eat their words!

0:52:02 > 0:52:05Two of them had actually been writing a book explaining why Ted had lost,

0:52:05 > 0:52:08and they had to rewrite it rather rapidly.

0:52:16 > 0:52:19I was with him in Bexley when it was clear he had won.

0:52:19 > 0:52:24It was a great surprise, but he says not to him!

0:52:25 > 0:52:29- 'How do you feel at this moment? - I feel in excellent form.

0:52:29 > 0:52:31'I thoroughly enjoyed this campaign,

0:52:31 > 0:52:35'I've enjoyed today particularly, here in my own constituency,

0:52:35 > 0:52:38'and I'm delighted with tonight's result here in Bexley,

0:52:38 > 0:52:40'and I'm much encouraged by the results of the rest of the country.'

0:52:40 > 0:52:44'Labour has suffered serious losses in these...'

0:52:44 > 0:52:49In his suite in the Adelphi Hotel, near his constituency in Huyton,

0:52:49 > 0:52:53Harold Wilson watched the shock results come in.

0:52:53 > 0:52:55'A great upset has occurred... #

0:52:55 > 0:52:58That was a really really mortal blow to Wilson.

0:52:58 > 0:53:03He'd actually gone to press conferences. People had asked questions about the Party's prospects

0:53:03 > 0:53:10and he'd say, "You tell me the last time a party whose leader has lagged behind the rival by 12 points

0:53:10 > 0:53:15"and the last time that party won the election." He was totally given to bragging, Wilson, and so he got

0:53:15 > 0:53:16his comeuppance.

0:53:16 > 0:53:19'Some applause from the people outside...

0:53:19 > 0:53:21'a small crowd of spectators.'

0:53:21 > 0:53:28It was unpleasant on the day. I mean, I looked out the window

0:53:28 > 0:53:33at Number 10 and there was a goodly crowd of Tories booing us

0:53:33 > 0:53:36and waiting to see us go. It's not nice.

0:53:36 > 0:53:39'To all intents and purposes you've given up any hope?

0:53:39 > 0:53:41'I think the figures speak for themselves.

0:53:43 > 0:53:44'When do you expect to go to the Palace?

0:53:44 > 0:53:46'That I don't know.'

0:53:46 > 0:53:47And we got to Number 10,

0:53:47 > 0:53:53and there was quite a big crowd there, so we were feeling pretty pleased about life by that time.

0:53:53 > 0:53:58Ted was in very good form, and of course we then wanted something to drink

0:53:58 > 0:54:05and Harold Wilson's secretary said that all they'd got were a few sandwiches and a glass of beer.

0:54:05 > 0:54:10I think we wanted rather more than that. I think we could do with a little champagne on

0:54:10 > 0:54:11an occasion of that nature!

0:54:15 > 0:54:22The Queen has asked me to form the next government, and I am indeed proud to accept.

0:54:22 > 0:54:26To govern is to serve.

0:54:30 > 0:54:34I was sitting with my predecessor in the Private Office and the door

0:54:34 > 0:54:37opened from the Cabinet Room and the Prime Minister came in

0:54:37 > 0:54:39and he looked at me and said, "Oh, are you here?

0:54:39 > 0:54:41"It's going to be very hard work, you know",

0:54:41 > 0:54:44and went back into the Cabinet Room.

0:54:44 > 0:54:50And this seemed a very sort of off-hand...

0:54:50 > 0:54:55rather off-putting way of welcoming me into the team,

0:54:55 > 0:54:58but then he was like that, and you got used to it.

0:54:58 > 0:55:03Heath offered the Wilsons the use of the prime minister's country house, Chequers,

0:55:03 > 0:55:06while they looked for somewhere to live.

0:55:06 > 0:55:11But there was a strange sequel- to do with Wilson's dog.

0:55:11 > 0:55:12It was called Paddy.

0:55:12 > 0:55:18A big, yellow Labrador that he was always being photographed with,

0:55:18 > 0:55:20taking it down to the Scilly Islands and that sort of a thing.

0:55:20 > 0:55:22I think he felt he ought to have a dog,

0:55:22 > 0:55:27because when he left, he left the dog when he left Chequers.

0:55:27 > 0:55:31To my total amazement when we went down there after he'd gone, the dog was still there.

0:55:31 > 0:55:33I don't think Ted really liked the dog.

0:55:33 > 0:55:35He thought that he was looking at Wilson every time.

0:55:35 > 0:55:42I was a bit worried that it might bite, but it was actually quite a nice dog.

0:55:42 > 0:55:44Wilson was gone...

0:55:44 > 0:55:47and eventually Paddy went with him too...

0:55:47 > 0:55:52but, for Heath, Wilson was to be out of mind as well as out of sight.

0:55:52 > 0:55:56The first thing he wants to do is to he gets rid of every

0:55:56 > 0:55:59taint of the dreadful Harold Wilson,

0:55:59 > 0:56:04so the wallpaper goes. In comes all of Heath's furniture that he has been amassing over the years.

0:56:04 > 0:56:09In comes the piano. And this is classic Heath. He basically...

0:56:09 > 0:56:15He sees Wilson as a kind of disease that he wants to eradicate completely from British politics.

0:56:15 > 0:56:20Instead of learning the lessons from Wilson's time, particularly Wilson's emphasis on

0:56:20 > 0:56:22public relations, that all has to go.

0:56:22 > 0:56:27Everything must go. Whitewash the lot, and that I think was a great failing of Heath's...

0:56:27 > 0:56:29his over-obsession with Wilson.

0:56:33 > 0:56:38The morning after the election, Wilson had shown some generosity to his victorious opponent.

0:56:41 > 0:56:45'Could we look at the campaign for a moment. Just your feelings this morning

0:56:45 > 0:56:48'towards Mr Heath. Do you admire him as an opponent?

0:56:48 > 0:56:53'I've always admired him, and I've said this many times, much more than many other people.

0:56:53 > 0:56:55'Even in his own party.'

0:56:55 > 0:57:01But behind closed doors, Wilson was fuming - defeat had been unthinkable...

0:57:01 > 0:57:04and it was now personal.

0:57:06 > 0:57:10A few weeks later, over a very trivial matter,

0:57:10 > 0:57:12he suddenly lost his temper.

0:57:12 > 0:57:16I only, in all the time I knew Wilson,

0:57:16 > 0:57:18only saw him lose his temper twice,

0:57:18 > 0:57:21and that was one of the times.

0:57:21 > 0:57:28The sheer dismay and disappointment must have been seething inside him.

0:57:29 > 0:57:32He didn't like to talk about it, but he sometimes referred to it,

0:57:32 > 0:57:38and how humiliating it was to be bundled out of 10 Downing Street.

0:57:38 > 0:57:43Out through the back door with his furniture carried out,

0:57:43 > 0:57:44while Ted Heath came through the front door.

0:57:44 > 0:57:50His whole objective after that was to walk back into Number 10

0:57:50 > 0:57:52as Prime Minister.

0:57:54 > 0:57:58Heath pitched camp to tackle the serious business of government,

0:57:58 > 0:58:01which he believed Wilson had so trivialized.

0:58:01 > 0:58:04'We begin Panorama live from Number 10.

0:58:04 > 0:58:10'People must face up to their own responsibilities, and when I say that I mean all of us,

0:58:10 > 0:58:16'the Government has certain responsibilities - to change policies as we are doing.'

0:58:16 > 0:58:21Wilson had arrived at Number 10 with the white heat of technology,

0:58:21 > 0:58:23but that had fizzled out.

0:58:23 > 0:58:25Heath's plans were even bigger.

0:58:25 > 0:58:30Heath had a couple of really large ideas about how to change Britain...

0:58:30 > 0:58:33entering Europe and also huge building projects.

0:58:33 > 0:58:35Heath started building the Channel Tunnel -

0:58:35 > 0:58:40that's lost to history now. He wanted to build a huge off-shore airport off the coast of Essex,

0:58:40 > 0:58:43which is very similar to what Boris Johnson wants to do now.

0:58:43 > 0:58:45So, Heath had big ideas.

0:58:45 > 0:58:50But, almost immediately, Heath suffered a major setback.

0:58:50 > 0:58:56His new chancellor, Iain Macleod, considered the cleverest Tory of his generation,

0:58:56 > 0:58:59died suddenly in Downing Street.

0:58:59 > 0:59:04The telephone rang at home and the prime minister came on the line and said,

0:59:04 > 0:59:07in a flat kind of voice, "Iain's dead.

0:59:07 > 0:59:08"You'd better come in."

0:59:08 > 0:59:10And so that was half past ten.

0:59:10 > 0:59:14I went straight in, of course, and I did then feel

0:59:14 > 0:59:18that it was very lonely sitting up in that great house,

0:59:18 > 0:59:22without a wife, without anybody close to him, as it were,

0:59:22 > 0:59:25but always denied that he was lonely until very late in his life.

0:59:25 > 0:59:28Heath had huge battles ahead.

0:59:28 > 0:59:32Now he would have to face them without his closest ally.

0:59:35 > 0:59:38# Now I'm a union man... #

0:59:38 > 0:59:43First up were the unions that had so plagued Wilson.

0:59:43 > 0:59:45# ..I'll say what I think That the company stinks

0:59:45 > 0:59:47# Yes, I'm a union man... #

0:59:47 > 0:59:52Within Heath's first months, council workers struck.

0:59:52 > 0:59:56Then the lights went out in an electricity dispute.

0:59:56 > 0:59:58# ..You don't get me I'm part of the union

0:59:58 > 1:00:00# Till the day I die... #

1:00:00 > 1:00:03Heath was determined to succeed where Wilson failed

1:00:03 > 1:00:07and introduced new laws to control the unions.

1:00:10 > 1:00:15In a foretaste of what was to come, the workers took to the streets in protest.

1:00:15 > 1:00:18NEWSREADER: The 5,000 men who marched in Birmingham today

1:00:18 > 1:00:22came mainly from the Austin-Morris factory at Longbridge.

1:00:22 > 1:00:25'In a way, Ted was ahead of his time.

1:00:25 > 1:00:30'We were trying to do things the country was not yet ready for.'

1:00:30 > 1:00:33It's an extraordinary thing about the British -

1:00:33 > 1:00:35we have to go through a lot of misery

1:00:35 > 1:00:38before we actually decide what we want to do.

1:00:39 > 1:00:45For the political satirists at Private Eye, the apparently humourless Heath was an easy target.

1:00:45 > 1:00:48They cast him as the managing director

1:00:48 > 1:00:51of an embattled company called Heathco Ltd.

1:00:51 > 1:00:56Heathco was a sort of run down company operating

1:00:56 > 1:00:58in the suburbs of London,

1:00:58 > 1:01:00and it had all gone pear-shaped, and this man

1:01:00 > 1:01:02was trying to keep it going

1:01:02 > 1:01:06but was continually frustrated by the workers.

1:01:06 > 1:01:08"To all employees.

1:01:08 > 1:01:12"I would like to address a few words to all of you about our new code

1:01:12 > 1:01:14"of industrial behaviour at Heathco's.

1:01:14 > 1:01:19"Let me say, here and now, that I am fully conversant with the fact

1:01:19 > 1:01:23"that some of you may find these new regulations a bitter pill to swallow."

1:01:23 > 1:01:25CHANTING

1:01:25 > 1:01:30The unions would be one common thread that bound Heath and Wilson.

1:01:30 > 1:01:35The second was the irreversible change in Britain's identity.

1:01:37 > 1:01:41Britain had ceased to be an imperial world power.

1:01:41 > 1:01:46For Heath, its new role had to be the one he'd so long dreamed of

1:01:46 > 1:01:48at the heart of a unified Europe.

1:01:52 > 1:01:58France's General de Gaulle had first rebuffed Harold Macmillan in 1963,

1:01:58 > 1:02:01then Harold Wilson in 1967.

1:02:03 > 1:02:07But there was now a new French President, Georges Pompidou,

1:02:07 > 1:02:12and Heath made it his business to make Pompidou open the door.

1:02:12 > 1:02:17On 22nd January, 1972, Heath took Britain into Europe.

1:02:19 > 1:02:24That was a personal achievement. Whether you think it is right for us

1:02:24 > 1:02:26to be in Europe or not,

1:02:26 > 1:02:29I think he has to be credited with that achievement.

1:02:32 > 1:02:37'Certainly Ted Heath felt a sense of triumph,

1:02:37 > 1:02:39'of personal triumph...'

1:02:41 > 1:02:48..to have won where Wilson had failed added a certain extra savour to the achievement.

1:02:52 > 1:02:58Wilson was profoundly irritated that Heath had succeeded where he'd missed out.

1:02:58 > 1:03:03Though Heath's terms of entry were much the same as Wilson would have accepted,

1:03:03 > 1:03:07he now used them to perform a political somersault.

1:03:07 > 1:03:11But the terms Mr Heath accepted mean that Britain has to accept

1:03:11 > 1:03:14terms and burdens and sacrifices

1:03:14 > 1:03:20which no other members of the six would have accepted for themselves.

1:03:20 > 1:03:25Our hopes have been fulfilled. We have succeeded.

1:03:26 > 1:03:32There is nothing that infuriates the prophets and apostles of gloom and defeat

1:03:32 > 1:03:34more than success.

1:03:34 > 1:03:41Heath, understandably, took a low view of this kind of volte-face that Wilson had committed.

1:03:41 > 1:03:43Basically, he got the party to stand on its head

1:03:43 > 1:03:46and waggle its legs in the air and pretend it had never

1:03:46 > 1:03:49stood in favour of Europe at all but it had.

1:03:49 > 1:03:53It's Heath who gets it through so Wilson manages to rain on

1:03:53 > 1:03:58even that parade. Tellingly, he won't even go and mark the event

1:03:58 > 1:04:01in Brussels or in London or whatever.

1:04:01 > 1:04:03He goes off to watch a football match instead,

1:04:03 > 1:04:05when Britain accedes to the European Community.

1:04:09 > 1:04:15Heath's great achievement came amid gathering economic gloom.

1:04:15 > 1:04:20Two days before he signed the treaty, unemployment in Britain,

1:04:20 > 1:04:23which had quietly been creeping up since the 1960s,

1:04:23 > 1:04:26finally reached one million.

1:04:26 > 1:04:30'When unemployment hit a million,'

1:04:30 > 1:04:33the House of Commons had to be suspended,

1:04:33 > 1:04:36there was so much opposition and so much noise.

1:04:36 > 1:04:41The very fact that unemployment went to three million or more

1:04:41 > 1:04:49under Margaret Thatcher and very nearly as high again under Labour a few years later,

1:04:49 > 1:04:54didn't alter the fact that for unemployment to reach a million

1:04:54 > 1:04:58was regarded as being a terrible political blunder.

1:04:58 > 1:05:00Heath was deeply troubled.

1:05:00 > 1:05:05Unemployment went against everything he believed in.

1:05:06 > 1:05:09It marked the beginning of a terrible few weeks

1:05:16 > 1:05:23On 30th January 1972, 13 men were shot dead on the streets of Derry by the British Army.

1:05:23 > 1:05:25Bloody Sunday.

1:05:28 > 1:05:34Then the miners walked out on strike - the first national miners' strike since 1926.

1:05:38 > 1:05:42The crucible was a coke depot on the outskirts of Birmingham - Saltley -

1:05:42 > 1:05:45where the miners were using flying pickets to block lorries.

1:05:50 > 1:05:55Heath knew this was where the battle would be won or lost.

1:05:55 > 1:06:00The climax came during a cabinet meeting on 10th February.

1:06:00 > 1:06:04Ted asked Reggie Maudling, who was Home Secretary at the time,

1:06:04 > 1:06:08whether he could give us any information on it

1:06:08 > 1:06:12and Maudling said he'd just been talking

1:06:12 > 1:06:17to the Chief Constable of Birmingham who had said

1:06:17 > 1:06:23that under all circumstances he was going to keep the gasworks open.

1:06:23 > 1:06:27An hour later, a message came in from Reggie Maudling

1:06:27 > 1:06:30to say that the Chief Constable

1:06:30 > 1:06:34had just rung up to say that the pressure had become too great.

1:06:34 > 1:06:36He had closed the gates

1:06:36 > 1:06:42and no lorries were getting in or out and, therefore,

1:06:42 > 1:06:43the unions had won.

1:06:43 > 1:06:49Heath had lost the first big battle of wills with the unions.

1:06:52 > 1:06:56Harold Wilson sniffed his opportunity.

1:06:56 > 1:06:59He'd kept a low profile since his election defeat.

1:06:59 > 1:07:03But now it was time to take on his adversary once again.

1:07:03 > 1:07:08Mr Heath was going to deal with strikes. He was going to end them once and for all.

1:07:08 > 1:07:12In fact we've lost far more man days through disputes

1:07:12 > 1:07:20under this government in 20 months than in the whole five years, eight months of the Labour government.

1:07:20 > 1:07:26It was only halfway through Heath's administration when things started to go badly wrong.

1:07:26 > 1:07:30Wilson pricked up his ears and said, "Back into the battle."

1:07:31 > 1:07:36One million unemployed had seriously rattled Heath.

1:07:36 > 1:07:41He'd been elected on a promise to make British industry competitive

1:07:41 > 1:07:43and let lame ducks go to the wall.

1:07:43 > 1:07:47But in 1972, he went into abrupt reverse

1:07:47 > 1:07:51and poured in government money to rescue failing businesses,

1:07:51 > 1:07:55most notably Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in Glasgow.

1:07:55 > 1:08:01He took the view that unemployment was such an evil thing to happen

1:08:01 > 1:08:07that he decided that he had to do what was then known as a U-turn.

1:08:07 > 1:08:14Of course, looking back on it, I think he was wrong because the welfare state had intervened

1:08:14 > 1:08:19and unemployment, though awful, didn't have the same sort of horrors

1:08:19 > 1:08:21that it had before the Second World War.

1:08:21 > 1:08:22# Ch-ch-ch-changes... #

1:08:22 > 1:08:26Heath's U-turn astonished the nation.

1:08:26 > 1:08:28And it was only the beginning.

1:08:28 > 1:08:33He now decided that government, far from letting the free market rule,

1:08:33 > 1:08:37should run the economy itself in collaboration with business and the unions.

1:08:37 > 1:08:40It sounded just like Harold Wilson.

1:08:42 > 1:08:44They are both really Social Democrats.

1:08:44 > 1:08:47They both believe in a large state and quite high taxation.

1:08:47 > 1:08:50They both hold positions at various times,

1:08:50 > 1:08:54almost deliberately holding the opposite position to the other and as soon as they are elected,

1:08:54 > 1:08:56they switch back.

1:08:56 > 1:09:00'Wilson once told me, "Do you know I am quite surprised that Ted Heath ever became a Tory."

1:09:00 > 1:09:04'Famously, when Ted Heath completely turned the Tory party'

1:09:04 > 1:09:06in a terrific U-Turn,

1:09:06 > 1:09:11he once criticised Ted Heath with the jibe,

1:09:11 > 1:09:13"He's just a socialist."

1:09:13 > 1:09:16And I don't think Heath liked that.

1:09:16 > 1:09:21TV ANNOUNCER: 'Do you know Britain's favourite game?

1:09:21 > 1:09:23'It's called inflation...'

1:09:23 > 1:09:26Heath was battling rocketing inflation at home,

1:09:26 > 1:09:29and complex global economic forces.

1:09:29 > 1:09:37In October 1973, oil prices soared after war broke out in the Middle East.

1:09:37 > 1:09:41Heath introduced government control of prices and incomes,

1:09:41 > 1:09:43pleading with the unions to work with him.

1:09:43 > 1:09:48Mr Barker Brierfield, would you please put your question to the Prime Minister?

1:09:48 > 1:09:53CALLER: What is the purpose of discussing prices and incomes

1:09:53 > 1:09:56with the TUC when it is known

1:09:56 > 1:10:02they could never be seen cooperating with a Tory government?

1:10:02 > 1:10:04I wouldn't accept your final point,

1:10:04 > 1:10:08that they could never be seen cooperating with a Tory government.

1:10:08 > 1:10:13We've been having these talks over the past 15 few months and they've been extremely valuable.

1:10:13 > 1:10:19But now, at Heath's moment of maximum weakness, the miners came back for more.

1:10:19 > 1:10:24'By the second time, it was not just money they were after.'

1:10:24 > 1:10:27It was to overthrow the government.

1:10:27 > 1:10:30The miners went on strike.

1:10:30 > 1:10:36Heath introduced a three-day week and restrictions on energy to conserve coal stocks.

1:10:36 > 1:10:40I was, for about ten minutes, Secretary for Energy when there wasn't any.

1:10:40 > 1:10:46There was no light, the three-day week and everybody was miserable.

1:10:46 > 1:10:50It was a horrible time. One didn't see an end of it and there couldn't

1:10:50 > 1:10:53be an end of it until you settled the miners' strike.

1:10:54 > 1:10:57HEATH: It is the fall in coal production and delivery,

1:10:57 > 1:11:03as a result of industrial action, that makes today's severe measures essential,

1:11:03 > 1:11:06so we must all use less electricity.

1:11:06 > 1:11:12In terms of comfort, we shall have a harder Christmas than we have known since the war.

1:11:12 > 1:11:17WILSON: There's a deep feeling in the hearts of our people that they would like

1:11:17 > 1:11:22to get back to a spirit of conciliation, to unite the country,

1:11:22 > 1:11:27in place of all these confrontations which divide it.

1:11:27 > 1:11:30Once Heath began to go down, Wilson was on him like

1:11:30 > 1:11:37a ferret on a rabbit and got his teeth firmly into the Prime Minister's throat.

1:11:37 > 1:11:40At times, the three-day week was pure tragicomedy.

1:11:40 > 1:11:43Never had a better deal, have they?

1:11:43 > 1:11:46'One of the things was saunas,'

1:11:46 > 1:11:50and so I asked my officials, "What can we do about it?

1:11:50 > 1:11:52Surely there don't need to be any saunas

1:11:52 > 1:11:53during this...

1:11:53 > 1:11:58And they came back and said, "Well, Minister, there are three sorts of saunas.

1:11:58 > 1:12:01"There are saunas in health clubs and there are saunas in hotels

1:12:01 > 1:12:07"and there are dubious saunas." And I said, "Well they can all be asked to be switched off."

1:12:07 > 1:12:13But I loved the expression "dubious saunas". One knew what they meant.

1:12:13 > 1:12:17The government was writing the script for comedians

1:12:17 > 1:12:20without the need for any editors!

1:12:20 > 1:12:25It was a great time to be engaged in politics. A pretty awful time to live in Britain.

1:12:25 > 1:12:26That was the reality.

1:12:26 > 1:12:30There were a number of silly things that happened

1:12:30 > 1:12:34but they were very difficult days.

1:12:34 > 1:12:39They were days that no other government really has had to face.

1:12:40 > 1:12:44Most of Heath's closest colleagues and advisers urged him to go

1:12:44 > 1:12:50for an early election to take the wind out of the miners', and Harold Wilson's, sails.

1:12:50 > 1:12:52'It's all very well appealing to Dunkirk spirit

1:12:52 > 1:12:56'but Dunkirk spirit lasts for days more than weeks.

1:12:56 > 1:13:02'I only remember seeing Ted once about then and saying exactly that

1:13:02 > 1:13:05and he was cross, not to put too fine a point on it.

1:13:05 > 1:13:12Heath was determined to hang in and get a deal with the miners.

1:13:12 > 1:13:16At one point he informally agreed a solution with the miners' leader

1:13:16 > 1:13:21Joe Gormley which involved paying miners for washing time.

1:13:21 > 1:13:24Wilson sabotaged it.

1:13:24 > 1:13:28Gormley rather rashly told Harold Wilson what he'd suggested.

1:13:28 > 1:13:31Harold Wilson promptly wrote

1:13:31 > 1:13:35a more or less open letter to Heath suggesting it,

1:13:35 > 1:13:37putting it forward as the solution,

1:13:37 > 1:13:41which, of course, meant Heath in turn felt bound to turn it down.

1:13:41 > 1:13:46Gormley believed that Wilson had done this deliberately to scupper

1:13:46 > 1:13:50the negotiations, and that otherwise this could have been a solution.

1:13:50 > 1:13:54The miners voted on Heath's final offer.

1:13:54 > 1:13:57He was desperate for them to accept it.

1:13:57 > 1:13:59They didn't.

1:13:59 > 1:14:02I had to go and tell him the result of this ballot.

1:14:02 > 1:14:05I remember taking it up to Downing Street one morning,

1:14:05 > 1:14:07realising the significance of it

1:14:07 > 1:14:11and I remember him sitting in his chair and looking at the result

1:14:11 > 1:14:18and said, "What can I do now?" and I said to him that it wasn't my job to give him political advice.

1:14:18 > 1:14:23I think there's only one thing you can do which is to have a General Election.

1:14:26 > 1:14:32On 7th February, 1974, Heath finally called an election.

1:14:33 > 1:14:36HEATH: This time, the strife has got to stop.

1:14:36 > 1:14:38Only you can stop it.

1:14:38 > 1:14:42It's time for you to speak with your vote.

1:14:42 > 1:14:46It's time for you to say to the extremists, the militants,

1:14:46 > 1:14:50and to the plain and simple misguided, "We've had enough!"

1:14:50 > 1:14:54CHANTING: Heath out! Heath out! Heath out! Heath out!

1:14:54 > 1:14:58Ted Heath started to try to make the election about who runs the country.

1:14:58 > 1:15:00Is it the unions or the elected government?

1:15:00 > 1:15:07That argument survived about three days because the public by that time were very cross, very cross.

1:15:07 > 1:15:13Tories out! Go and sail your yacht! You've taken the country down the river!

1:15:13 > 1:15:17Heath, in asking the question, "Who rules Britain?"

1:15:17 > 1:15:21was going to get the answer from huge numbers of people, "Not you, mate!"

1:15:23 > 1:15:29'Wilson had a much keener nose for public opinion than Mr Heath.'

1:15:29 > 1:15:32Wilson was almost feline.

1:15:32 > 1:15:38I believe that the voters recognise who it is that has encouraged the militants over the past three years.

1:15:38 > 1:15:43Mr Heath has given the militants the charter they always dreamed of.

1:15:43 > 1:15:48He was offering the public the option of not dealing

1:15:48 > 1:15:52with the trade union problem, really, and that was put off

1:15:52 > 1:15:54because the public wasn't yet ready to face it.

1:15:54 > 1:15:59They faced it with Margaret Thatcher but they weren't yet ready for that.

1:16:02 > 1:16:04The result was extremely close.

1:16:04 > 1:16:06ANNOUNCER: For the first time since 1929,

1:16:06 > 1:16:11a British general election has produced no clear result...

1:16:11 > 1:16:15Wilson won most seats, though not an overall majority,

1:16:15 > 1:16:17but Heath won most votes.

1:16:17 > 1:16:21ANNOUNCER: Mr Heath going back to Number 10...

1:16:21 > 1:16:24Heath stayed put in Downing Street and tried to do a deal

1:16:24 > 1:16:27with the Liberal Party and its leader Jeremy Thorpe.

1:16:27 > 1:16:31Heath made a rather flat-footed attempt to form

1:16:31 > 1:16:33the sort of coalition we've got now.

1:16:33 > 1:16:35He would say, and his supporters would say,

1:16:35 > 1:16:37he made a more principled attempt.

1:16:37 > 1:16:40He said to Jeremy Thorpe, "There's a national emergency.

1:16:40 > 1:16:44"We want you to support the emergency but we can't buy you

1:16:44 > 1:16:45"with seats in the Cabinet."

1:16:45 > 1:16:47That was rather typical of Heath.

1:16:47 > 1:16:51A man of principle but nevertheless applying his principles in a flat-footed way.

1:16:51 > 1:16:53The coalition would never come about.

1:16:53 > 1:16:56I remember Jeremy Thorpe coming out of Number 10

1:16:56 > 1:16:59and saying on the TV, "He wont give us anything."

1:16:59 > 1:17:00That was Mr Heath all over.

1:17:00 > 1:17:06The last day in Number 10 was on the Monday and we sat round the cabinet table,

1:17:06 > 1:17:12and the person who really expressed our feelings on that occasion was Margaret Thatcher

1:17:12 > 1:17:16who was the one who expressed admiration

1:17:16 > 1:17:20for what Ted Heath had done as Prime Minister

1:17:20 > 1:17:23and for the way he had behaved towards colleagues

1:17:23 > 1:17:27and how sad it was that it ended in that way.

1:17:27 > 1:17:29And that was Margaret Thatcher.

1:17:29 > 1:17:32It didn't always work out like that afterwards.

1:17:32 > 1:17:38He was deeply depressed and it was emotional for all of us, really,

1:17:38 > 1:17:44because there was a sense in which, because Heath had no close family of his own, the people

1:17:44 > 1:17:47at Number 10 felt like an extended family

1:17:47 > 1:17:49and that was coming to an end.

1:17:49 > 1:17:51So it was an emotional time.

1:17:52 > 1:17:57I feel sad because I believe in three and a half years, we've achieved a very great deal.

1:17:57 > 1:18:00But we've left unfinished business.

1:18:01 > 1:18:07At Buckingham Palace, Heath came out of one door whilst Wilson went into another.

1:18:07 > 1:18:11He went up to see the Queen and handed in his resignation,

1:18:11 > 1:18:16which he did and I had some rather unpleasant sherry

1:18:16 > 1:18:20with the Queen's secretary downstairs.

1:18:20 > 1:18:23Harold Wilson and his wife Mary

1:18:23 > 1:18:27went in their little car and the rest of us in his

1:18:27 > 1:18:33personal team went in a separate big car and we all drove to the palace.

1:18:33 > 1:18:38And then, eventually, he came down and we walked out to the door

1:18:38 > 1:18:41and there was no car. Our car had gone.

1:18:41 > 1:18:44Our driver who we had had for four and half years.

1:18:44 > 1:18:46So we said, "Where the hell's the car gone?"

1:18:46 > 1:18:49"Oh, he's gone to pick up Mr Wilson," they said.

1:18:49 > 1:18:53Half an hour later, he came out

1:18:53 > 1:18:57and there was an official Number 10 car waiting, and he got in.

1:18:57 > 1:19:00Then I watched him get in

1:19:00 > 1:19:03and I thought, "He's Prime Minister."

1:19:03 > 1:19:06ANNOUNCER: Mr Wilson, having kissed hands as Prime Minister,

1:19:06 > 1:19:09has returned from the palace to Number 10 Downing Street...

1:19:09 > 1:19:11We've got a job to do.

1:19:12 > 1:19:16We can only do that job as one people.

1:19:16 > 1:19:19And I'm going right in to start that job now.

1:19:19 > 1:19:24When we walked into Number 10, we all went and had a look around,

1:19:24 > 1:19:28and Wilson was very intrigued by all the changes,

1:19:28 > 1:19:31new wallpaper and all of this,

1:19:31 > 1:19:36and Harold turned to me and said, "Ted's ponced it up a bit!"

1:19:39 > 1:19:43Wilson immediately bought off the miners.

1:19:43 > 1:19:48He ordered a pay review, which gave them a massive increase.

1:19:48 > 1:19:55It was storing up trouble ahead but, for now, the nation had chosen peace and submission.

1:19:55 > 1:19:58From one week writing speeches for Ted Heath

1:19:58 > 1:20:02about how important it was to resist the miners,

1:20:02 > 1:20:05found myself the next week writing speeches

1:20:05 > 1:20:08for Harold Wilson saying that all this had been a waste of time

1:20:08 > 1:20:10and the problem could be easily settled.

1:20:12 > 1:20:17The public preferred a quiet life under Harold.

1:20:17 > 1:20:20And he didn't understand Ted Heath

1:20:20 > 1:20:25for what he felt was creating a lot of disorder and chaos.

1:20:25 > 1:20:29He wasn't a revolutionary. He wasn't very radical.

1:20:29 > 1:20:33Ted Heath was much more radical than Harold Wilson.

1:20:34 > 1:20:36There is an actual, if not animosity, a real feeling

1:20:36 > 1:20:38between the two of you?

1:20:38 > 1:20:42Well, I think in politics it's not a question of liking one another.

1:20:42 > 1:20:46- It's a question of dealing with people.- Do you like him?

1:20:46 > 1:20:51Again, it's not a question of likes or dislikes.

1:20:51 > 1:20:56- But do you like him? - That'll have to remain to be seen.

1:20:58 > 1:21:00The nature of the Prime Minister himself

1:21:00 > 1:21:02was very different under Wilson.

1:21:02 > 1:21:05In personal terms, he and I got on very well together.

1:21:05 > 1:21:09I enjoyed him. He had small talk in a way that

1:21:09 > 1:21:14Ted Heath never had and, in that sense, it was a much easier relationship,

1:21:14 > 1:21:19but you didn't have the same sense...

1:21:19 > 1:21:22of confidence and trust that you had with Heath.

1:21:22 > 1:21:25You felt with Heath that you could always trust him.

1:21:25 > 1:21:28With Wilson you could never be quite sure what he would be up to.

1:21:28 > 1:21:32"By the Queen, a proclamation,

1:21:32 > 1:21:38"dissolving the present Parliament and declaring the calling of another."

1:21:38 > 1:21:43In October, 1974, Wilson called another election,

1:21:43 > 1:21:46the fourth between himself and Heath.

1:21:47 > 1:21:50Heath was drinking in the last chance saloon.

1:21:50 > 1:21:54By the time we came to the Autumn of 1974,

1:21:54 > 1:21:57the message coming through

1:21:57 > 1:22:01to MPs and people who canvassed on the streets

1:22:01 > 1:22:03was, "We've got to get rid of this man."

1:22:03 > 1:22:07The feeling that Ted Heath's time had come and gone.

1:22:09 > 1:22:12Wilson won again.

1:22:12 > 1:22:17Only just, but it was enough to defeat Ted Heath, for the third

1:22:17 > 1:22:19and what would be the final time.

1:22:22 > 1:22:25Heath's party did not forgive him.

1:22:27 > 1:22:30In February 1975, a surprise challenger,

1:22:30 > 1:22:35Margaret Thatcher, took him on in the Tory leadership contest.

1:22:35 > 1:22:42When the ballot for leadership came, I was up fulfilling a political engagement in the Midlands

1:22:42 > 1:22:46and the train arrived back in London an hour and a half late

1:22:46 > 1:22:49and I got to the House of Commons too late to vote.

1:22:49 > 1:22:53So I wasn't in a very strong position all round.

1:22:53 > 1:22:56And as I got to

1:22:56 > 1:22:59the House of Commons,

1:22:59 > 1:23:02none other than Kenneth Clarke

1:23:02 > 1:23:07came running out of Westminster Hall,

1:23:07 > 1:23:09saying, "She's won, she's won!"

1:23:12 > 1:23:18After ten dramatic years, the Heath-Wilson duel was suddenly over.

1:23:20 > 1:23:23Wilson at first looked pleased

1:23:23 > 1:23:28because he had seen off his opponent throughout much of his career

1:23:28 > 1:23:33and then he suddenly looked own and said,

1:23:33 > 1:23:35"I'm not sure that's a good thing."

1:23:35 > 1:23:43He said to me, "You know, Bernard, I've been studying him for decades. I've watched his every move.

1:23:43 > 1:23:47"I think I know what he'll say in any situation.

1:23:47 > 1:23:50"I know how to provoke him.

1:23:50 > 1:23:55"I know how to respond to him, I know what he'll do and now he's gone."

1:23:56 > 1:23:59There was one final piece of unfinished business

1:23:59 > 1:24:05in the topsy-turvy course of Heath and Wilson - Europe.

1:24:05 > 1:24:11Wilson had opposed Heath's entry, saying the terms were wrong.

1:24:11 > 1:24:15In 1975, he renegotiated the terms. The changes were entirely superficial

1:24:15 > 1:24:22but allowed Wilson to recommend the country to vote in a referendum

1:24:22 > 1:24:23to stay in.

1:24:25 > 1:24:30Heath, from the backbenches, was at the forefront of the "yes" campaign.

1:24:30 > 1:24:35"Is Britain stronger inside Europe? Yes!"

1:24:35 > 1:24:40Wilson, ever fearful of splits in his party, kept a low profile.

1:24:42 > 1:24:48In the 1975 referendum, the British people voted overwhelmingly

1:24:48 > 1:24:49to stay in Europe.

1:24:49 > 1:24:53I'm delighted with the result. I've worked for this for 25 years.

1:24:53 > 1:24:54I was the Prime Minister who led...

1:24:54 > 1:25:00Every democrat will accept the result, you and all!

1:25:00 > 1:25:04It was the outcome both Heath, publicly and vociferously,

1:25:04 > 1:25:08and Wilson, privately and furtively, had wanted.

1:25:08 > 1:25:12But it had been a curious double act to get there.

1:25:16 > 1:25:21Wilson had always said to those close to him he'd do two more years and retire at 60.

1:25:21 > 1:25:25Fatigue and mental decline were beginning to show.

1:25:25 > 1:25:32I left in April '75 and I came back in December '75 for some function.

1:25:32 > 1:25:37I'd never met a man so absolutely tired and exhausted.

1:25:37 > 1:25:40It was like a piece of elastic where all the rubber has gone.

1:25:40 > 1:25:45And I now think that the signs of his eventual mental decline

1:25:45 > 1:25:46were beginning to show.

1:25:49 > 1:25:54On 16th March, 1976, just over a year after Heath

1:25:54 > 1:25:57had been ditched by the Conservative party,

1:25:57 > 1:26:00Harold Wilson resigned as Prime Minister

1:26:00 > 1:26:04and slowly slipped out of British politics.

1:26:07 > 1:26:11Heath set up home in Salisbury but remained active in the Commons

1:26:11 > 1:26:13for the next 25 years.

1:26:13 > 1:26:18When they both got old, Ted was really quite kind.

1:26:18 > 1:26:24When Wilson had lost his marbles, he would ask Wilson and his wife Mary

1:26:24 > 1:26:27down to Salisbury for Sunday lunch and that kind of thing.

1:26:27 > 1:26:31And after Wilson died, he would ask Mary on her own and I think he got on

1:26:31 > 1:26:33quite well with Mary Wilson.

1:26:33 > 1:26:37That wasn't the problem. The problem was Harold. They were chalk and cheese.

1:26:40 > 1:26:46Lord Harold Wilson died on 24th May, 1995, aged 79.

1:26:50 > 1:26:57Sir Edward Heath ten years later, on 17th July, 2005, aged 89.

1:26:59 > 1:27:03Their duel now seems another era

1:27:03 > 1:27:07yet the problems they faced are oddly familiar.

1:27:08 > 1:27:12Britain's identity within Europe is still debated.

1:27:12 > 1:27:17Trade unions are gearing up against a Conservative-led government.

1:27:17 > 1:27:19The economy is fragile.

1:27:21 > 1:27:24The shadow of Heath and Wilson hangs over us.

1:27:26 > 1:27:31But as for the two men themselves, was there a winner?

1:27:31 > 1:27:35Harold Wilson retired at a time he chose,

1:27:35 > 1:27:39under no particular pressure to do so, whilst still in office.

1:27:39 > 1:27:44Ted Heath was first defeated in an election and then hounded

1:27:44 > 1:27:49from leadership of the party. So, in those terms, Wilson won.

1:27:49 > 1:27:53Looked at another way, I'm not quite so sure.

1:27:53 > 1:27:56Ted Heath had a passionate crusade,

1:27:56 > 1:27:59an ideal in which he believed - Britain in Europe -

1:27:59 > 1:28:05and in which he succeeded and his success lasted after he had gone.

1:28:05 > 1:28:11Howard Wilson had no such ambition, no such crusade.

1:28:11 > 1:28:15His only concentration was on keeping the party united,

1:28:15 > 1:28:20which he did very successfully but which was not a noble cause

1:28:20 > 1:28:22in the sense that Heath had.

1:28:22 > 1:28:25So perhaps Heath won after all.

1:28:36 > 1:28:37# Chalk and cheese

1:28:37 > 1:28:39# We're as different as Chalk and cheese

1:28:39 > 1:28:43# Were there ever two people more Out of step before?

1:28:43 > 1:28:45# More unlike, if you please... #

1:28:46 > 1:28:49Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

1:28:49 > 1:28:52E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk