A World We Have Lost: where Harold Wilson spent 1960s Christmas holidays
Harold Wilson was Labour Prime Minister from 1964-70 and 1974-76 winning four General Elections in the process. I looked at Nick Symonds-Thomas’s biography of Wilson (The Winner 2022) to see where he spent his Christmas holidays
Certainly in the mid-1960s after he had been elected as PM it was at his home in the Scilly Isles. The week before Christmas Wilson and family took the overnight sleeper train from Paddington to Penzance and thence by helicopter to the Scilly Isles. They stayed until New Year.
In more recent times the world of Prime Ministerial Christmas holidays looks rather different. Rishi Sunak is reportedly spending time at his Richmond Constituency home in North Yorkshire. Keir Starmer keeps details of his vacations quiet reasonably enough to keep the media from disturbing his children, although he did post a picture on Twitter of his partner and himself having a Christmas Day drink at his Kentish Town local.
Details of where Boris Johnson is have yet to appear, perhaps because he is yesterday’s man, but almost certainly in foreign climes at an expensive location paid for by someone else. As for Liz Truss, many might wish that she takes a permanent holiday from politics.
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