Harold Wilson (1916 – 1995)
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970, and again from 1974 to 1976.
The government have only a small majority in the House of Commons. I want to make it quite clear that this will not affect our ability to govern. Having been charged with the duties of Government we intend to carry out those duties.
It is difficult for us to appreciate the pressures which are put on men I know to be realistic and reasonable, not only in their executive capacity but in the highly organized strike committees in the individual ports by this tightly knit group of politically motivated men who, as the last general election showed, utterly failed to secure acceptance of their views by the British electorate, but who are now determined to exercise back-stage pressures, forcing great hardship on the members of the union and their families, and endangering the security of the industry and the economic welfare of the nation.