The key reason for Wilson’s shock resignation was apparently that he was
showing signs of early onset dementia so anything he said to journos at
the time was coloured by that sad fact
Of course they would. MI5 – and Special Branch – in the 70s were awash with paranoia and its consequent unsupervised over-reach. A pal of mine at the time, prominent in left-wing student politics, was tipped off by a concerned spook who engineered an opportunity for him to read his own file so that he could see for himself the staggering extent of the hysteria that had seeped down even to the level of students with trivial agitprop agendas.
Given the recent scandal about deep-cover officers getting married and starting families with members of groups under surveillance, god only knows what they were up to before FOI laws came into being
The ‘Wilson Plot’ has been considered pretty much as a given by those with more than a passing interest of UK para politics since at least the late 70s.
If anybody doubts just how busy the spooks were then (& by implication have been ever since), try Googling the names Colin Wallace and Fred Holroyd. Makes the goings on around the fictional Slough House seem positively upstanding & ethical!
Certainly not implausible that some ‘mischievous’ stories were fed or placed to assist the general anti JC agenda & it’s hard to imagine many spooks are fans of his.
I don’t personally think their input would have been necessary TBH, given that the entire right of his own party piled in hoping to ensure that the public would regard him as a blend of Pol Pot, Rudolph Hess & Jimmy Savile for advocating a centre left agenda that would be considered quite bland in much of Europe.
It isn’t too much of a leap to picture shadowy types being delighted at this & absolutely loving who his successor turned out to be & the agenda he subsequently pursued.
Nah, conspiracy theory.
The key reason for Wilson’s shock resignation was apparently that he was
showing signs of early onset dementia so anything he said to journos at
the time was coloured by that sad fact
Of course they would. MI5 – and Special Branch – in the 70s were awash with paranoia and its consequent unsupervised over-reach. A pal of mine at the time, prominent in left-wing student politics, was tipped off by a concerned spook who engineered an opportunity for him to read his own file so that he could see for himself the staggering extent of the hysteria that had seeped down even to the level of students with trivial agitprop agendas.
Given the recent scandal about deep-cover officers getting married and starting families with members of groups under surveillance, god only knows what they were up to before FOI laws came into being
The ‘Wilson Plot’ has been considered pretty much as a given by those with more than a passing interest of UK para politics since at least the late 70s.
If anybody doubts just how busy the spooks were then (& by implication have been ever since), try Googling the names Colin Wallace and Fred Holroyd. Makes the goings on around the fictional Slough House seem positively upstanding & ethical!
Corbyn?
Certainly not implausible that some ‘mischievous’ stories were fed or placed to assist the general anti JC agenda & it’s hard to imagine many spooks are fans of his.
I don’t personally think their input would have been necessary TBH, given that the entire right of his own party piled in hoping to ensure that the public would regard him as a blend of Pol Pot, Rudolph Hess & Jimmy Savile for advocating a centre left agenda that would be considered quite bland in much of Europe.
It isn’t too much of a leap to picture shadowy types being delighted at this & absolutely loving who his successor turned out to be & the agenda he subsequently pursued.