Downing Street diary

Author(s)

    • Donoughue, Bernard

Bibliographic Information

Downing Street diary

Jonathan Cape, 2005-

  • [1]
  • 2

Available at  / 2 libraries

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Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Contents of Works

  • [1]: with Harold Wilson in No. 10 / Bernard Donoughue
  • 2: with James Callaghan in No. 10 / Bernard Donoughue

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

[1] ISBN 9780224040228

Description

Early in 1974, Bernard Donoughue, a young academic at the London School of Economics, was invited by Harold Wilson first to help fight the General Election and then to found and run the Policy Unit at Number Ten Downing Street, a body independent of the Civil Service machine working solely for the Prime Minister. He thus joined Wilson?s notorious ?kitchen cabinet? with Joe Haines, Wilson?s combative press secretary, and Marcia Williams, Wilson?s personal and private secretary. Donoughue remained in Downing Street throughout Wilson?s final premiership and was at the centre of events during this crucial period of history. His diary, kept every day, provides an extraordinarily intimate portrait of Harold Wilson, struggling to hold the Labour Party together, drinking heavily, increasingly paranoid about ?plots? and the press, and apparently in thrall to Marcia Williams. Williams had an extraordinary hold over the Prime Minister and violently resented ?intrusion? from any other advisors, Donoughue included. Though the story of Wilson?s ?kitchen cabinet? has been told before, there has never been an account as intimate and explosive as this extraordinary diary.
Volume

2 ISBN 9780224073806

Description

The first volume of Bernard Donoughue's "Downing Street Diary" was described by Charles Moore in the "Daily Telegraph" as 'the best account of Harold Wlson's last days'; 'the sheer scale and detail are fascinating' wrote Peter Riddell in the TLS. This second volume covers the three years, 1976-79, when Donoughue was Senior Policy Advisor to James Callaghan. At first Callaghan quickly established dominance over his cabinet and restored calm after the plots and scandals of the later Wilson years. His incomes policy reduced inflation and, in the teeth of opposition from the left wing, he negotiated the notorious IMF loan at the expense of eliminating some of Labour's most cherished dreams. By 1978, Callaghan, a politician of great patriotism and decency, seemed to have succeeded in steering Britain into calmer waters. But then the storm broke. Trade union militants brushed aside their mediocre leaders and launched a ferocious attack on Callaghan's pay policy, driving up inflation and demonstrating the government's impotence. In the diaries we see the prime minister and the government paralysed as the 'Winter of Discontent' began to bite and politics took to the streets. As Labour drifted to inevitable defeat in the 1979 election we see Callaghan fighting honourably. From the smoke of battle there emerges a striking new leader: Margaret Thatcher. The diaries describe vividly both the decline and final collapse of 'old' Labour and how Mrs Thatcher took the opportunity to launch her crusade to dismantle trade union power and much of the British public sector. Besides James Callaghan the chief figures in this volume of Lord Donoughue's diaries are Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, Tony Crosland, Michael Foot, Shirley Williams, David Owen and Tony Benn.

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