Joe Haines who was Harold Wilson’s press secretary in the mid-1970s when he was PM before stepping down in 1976 has revealed that he was close to the deputy press secretary Janet Hewlett Davies during the period.
Haines who is 96 told the Times that he revealed the matter for completeness. Ms Hewlett-Davies died aged 85 in 2023.
It is rather different from the serial philandering of Boris Johnson but also a reminder that while there were persistent stories that Wilson was a Russian agent in reality his secret behaviour was a of a much more mundane and personal character.
Ms Hewlett-Davies surely deserves a place in labour history as a dedicated public servant who was also clearly a Labour supporter. After she left Downing St she was a communications executive for several Whitehall departments and then worked as head of PR at the Daily Mirror.
Harold Wilson, rightly, has several biographies devoted to him. But important women such as Ms Hewlett-Davies who played a key role deserves to be remembered for their professional expertise rather more than what they did in their personal lives.
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