Joe Haines, political journalist and press secretary to former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, has died aged 97, A Labour spokesman has confirmed.
Haines joined Wilson’s Downing Avenue operation in 1969 throughout his first time period in workplace and went on to develop into a part of the Labour chief’s “kitchen cupboard” of shut political advisers.
He stayed by Wilson’s facet after Labour’s shock ejection from energy in 1970 and was granted an expanded position in his second spell in workplace from 1974.
He turned an ally of Bernard, now Lord, Donoughue, who arrange and ran Wilson’s coverage unit and would go on to develop into an in depth pal.
However he had a turbulent relationship with one other key Wilson aide, his political secretary Baroness Falkender, previously Marcia Williams, whom he denounced in his later writings and blamed for Wilson’s political demise in 1976.
Haines hit the headlines final yr aged 96, when he claimed Wilson had an affair along with his deputy press secretary Janet Hewlett-Davies.
There have been persistent rumours that Wilson, who was married, had an affair with Baroness Falkender. He repeatedly denied the claims.
Nonetheless, this was the primary time a romantic relationship with Ms Hewlett-Davies had ever been prompt.
Lord Donoughue stated Haines had informed him in regards to the affair throughout Wilson’s premiership and the pair had saved the key for almost 50 years.
However they determined to disclose the main points to make sure the “full story” of Wilson’s premiership was informed after Ms Hewlett-Davies died in 2023.
Born in 1928, Haines grew up in what he later referred to as the “bug-ridden, gas-lit slum” of pre-war Rotherhithe, south-east London.
His father died when he was younger and he was introduced up in poverty by his mom, an upbringing he stated drew him to affix the Labour Get together throughout his teenage years.
His profession in journalism started at The Bulletin, a Glasgow-based mid-morning title, the place he rose up the ranks to develop into its political correspondent.
When it ceased publication in 1960 he turned political correspondent at The Scottish Day by day Mail.
From there he joined new title The Solar, then a left-leaning broadsheet, within the years earlier than it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch.
It was from right here that he was recruited by Wilson to work in Downing Avenue, turning into the then-prime minister’s deputy press secretary after which press secretary in 1969, in what can be the ultimate yr of his first spell in energy.
After Downing Avenue, Haines returned to a profession in journalism, turning into political editor, chief author, assistant editor and director at The Day by day Mirror.
He continued to put in writing opinion items into his eighties and nineties, bemoaning the stature of modern-day politicians and the shortage of working-class voices in politics.
