On 9th May 1968 local elections in London saw Labour lose all but three Councils to the Tories
Cecil King then the head of the Daily Mirror publishing empire- the paper sold over 5 million copies a day in 1968- ran a front page Editorial demanding that the Labour Government headed by Harold Wilson was forced from Office. It was headlined ‘enough is enough’
King went further than that. He organised a meeting attended by Louis Mountbatten and others to see if a military coup could be organised to depose Wilson. To their credit Mountbatten and Co. refused point blank.
King was fired by the owners of the Mirror IPC on 30th May for damaging the interests of the Company.
The coup attempt came on the back of the very poor local election results for Labour and a poor economic performance. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was Roy Jenkins.
Tony Benn recorded in his Diary (10th May 1968) ‘At about midnight Harold Wilson rang up and asked if I would go and see him tomorrow morning. Cecil King’s attack was the big news in all the papers and Harold’s paranoia is being fed’
Benn recorded that at the meeting, Wilson told ‘I’m not quitting you know’. He didn’t but lost the June 1970 General Election.
The London election results of May 2026 are not as bad for Labour as 1968- an important corrective to ‘of the moment’ news media. At the same time while in 1968 London politics went right, in 2026 its going at least to the left of Starmerism with Green Party gains
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