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Love and loathing at Harold Wilson’s No. 10

Even her enemies considered Marcia Williams the prime minister’s ‘political wife’, and the real force in the Labour party from the mid-1960s to Wilson’s resignation

11 November 2023

9:00 AM

11 November 2023

9:00 AM

Marcia Williams: The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender Linda McDougall

Biteback, pp.304, 25

If Marcia Williams is thought of at all today, it is in terms of hysterical outbursts, a mysterious hold over the Labour prime minister Harold Wilson and, above all, the ‘Lavender List’ – Wilson’s 1976 Resignation Honours List in which Marcia is believed to have played a significant part. Linda McDougall, the widow of the Labour MP Austin Mitchell, gives an infinitely more nuanced and sympathetic picture of this extraordinary woman.

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