1976 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours

The 1976 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours were announced on 27 May 1976 to mark the resignation of Prime Minister

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

Harold Wilson

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...

. The list of honours became known satirically as the "Lavender List".

Controversy

The list caused controversy as a number of recipients were wealthy businessmen whose principles were considered antipathetic to those held by the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

at the time.

Roy Jenkins

Roy Jenkins

Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM, PC was a British politician.The son of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in...

notes that Wilson's retirement "was disfigured by his, at best, eccentric resignation honours list, which gave peerages or knighthoods to some adventurous business gentlemen, several of whom were close neither to him nor to the Labour Party."

One businessman on the list, Lord Kagan

Joseph Kagan, Baron Kagan

Joseph Kagan, Baron Kagan was a British industrialist and the founder of Kagan Textiles, of Elland, which made raincoats from the waterproof Gannex fabric he had invented. Gannex raincoats were most famously worn by Harold Wilson...

, was convicted of fraud in 1980; Sir Eric Miller

Eric Miller (businessman)

Sir Eric Merton Miller was a British businessman who committed suicide while under investigation for fraud.-Early life:...

committed suicide while under investigation for fraud in 1977. Another beneficiary was the buccaneering financier James Goldsmith

James Goldsmith

Sir James Michael "Jimmy" Goldsmith was an Anglo-French billionaire financier and tycoon. Towards the end of his life, he became a magazine publisher and a politician. In 1994, he was elected to represent France as a Member of the European Parliament and he subsequently founded the short-lived...

. Nearly all of the other names on the list such as actor John Mills

John Mills

Sir John Mills CBE , born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an English actor who made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades.-Life and career:...

were, however, uncontroversial. Dismissing the notoriety of these two names, both of Wilson's academic biographers, Professor Ben Pimlott

Ben Pimlott

Benjamin John Pimlott, known as Ben Pimlott , was a British historian of the post-war period in Britain...

and Philip Ziegler

Philip Ziegler

-Background:Born in Ringwood, Ziegler was educated at St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, and went with the school when it merged with Summer Fields School, Oxford. He was afterwards at Eton College and New College, Oxford...

, writing in the 1990s long after the purported events stress that there was never any question at the time or subsequently of financial impropriety in the drawing up of the list.

The origin of the name "Lavender List" derived from the claim made by former press secretary and journalist Joe Haines that the head of Wilson's political office, Lady Falkender

Marcia Falkender, Baroness Falkender

Marcia Matilda Falkender, Baroness Falkender CBE , formerly Marcia Williams , is a British Labour politician, being first the private secretary for, and then the political secretary and head of political office to, Harold Wilson.-Background and early career:Born Marcia Field, Falkender was educated...

, had written the original draft on lavender-coloured notepaper. No documentary evidence has been proferred to support this claim and Wilson and Falkender denied it. Joe Haines expressly denied any financial impropriety in the compilation of the list on national television in an interview on BBC's Panorama on 14.2.77. In 2001 Joe Haines drastically altered his allegations with an entirely new version of the "Lavender List". Lady Falkender successfully sued Joe Haines for libel in 2007 over the allegation that she was the author of the list. Many false allegations in the media were subject to litigation by both Wilson and Falkender during the 1970s, which later gave rise to a long complaint by Wilson published in the Times that his administration had been subject to a deliberate smear campaign. Wilson's suspicions were later partially corroborated by former MI5 Assistant Director Peter Wright

Peter Wright

Peter Maurice Wright was an English scientist and former MI5 counterintelligence officer, noted for writing the controversial book Spycatcher, which became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies...

in his book Spycatcher
Spycatcher
Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer , is a book written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass. It was published first in Australia...

, a book that was initially banned from publication in the UK.

According to a letter from Edith Summerskill

Edith Summerskill

Edith Clara Summerskill, Baroness Summerskill CH PC was a British physician, feminist, misandrist, Labour politician and writer. She was appointed to the Privy Council in 1949.-Early life:...

published in The Times on 27 May 1977, the members of the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee "...were astounded when we read the list of proposed honours. We told the civil servant present that we could not approve of a least half of the list, and would he see that this was conveyed to the Prime Minister", and that "... it astonished us to find that, with one exception, the original list of recipients was published unchanged." But she comments that "we were in fact faced with a fait accompli which we had no power to upset."

Political and Public Services List

The recipients of honours are displayed here as they were styled before their new honour, and arranged by honour.

Life Peer

Terence George Boston
Sir Bernard Delfont
Bernard Delfont
Bernard Delfont, Baron Delfont , born Boris Winogradsky, was a leading Russian-born British theatrical impresario....
Sir Lew Grade
Lew Grade
Lew Grade, Baron Grade , born Lev Winogradsky, was an influential Russian-born English impresario and media mogul.-Early years:...
Sir Joseph Kagan
Joseph Kagan, Baron Kagan
Joseph Kagan, Baron Kagan was a British industrialist and the founder of Kagan Textiles, of Elland, which made raincoats from the waterproof Gannex fabric he had invented. Gannex raincoats were most famously worn by Harold Wilson...
Albert James Murray
Sir Max Rayne
Max Rayne
Max Rayne, Baron Rayne was a supporter of medical, religious, education and arts charities in England.-Early life:...
John Ernest Vaizey
Sir Arthur George Weidenfeld
George Weidenfeld
Arthur George Weidenfeld, Baron Weidenfeld, GBE is a British publisher, philanthropist, and newspaper columnist. He was born in Vienna, Austria.Weidenfeld attended the University of Vienna and the city's Diplomatic College...

Companion of Honour

Lord Elwyn-Jones
Elwyn Jones, Baron Elwyn-Jones
Frederick Elwyn Jones, Baron Elwyn-Jones CH, PC was a Welsh barrister and Labour politician.-Background and education:...

, Lord Chancellor
Edward Watson Short

Knighthood

Stanley Baker
Stanley Baker
Sir Stanley Baker was a Welsh actor and film producer.-Early career:William Stanley Baker was born in Ferndale, Rhondda Valley, Wales. In the mid-1930s his parents moved to London, where Baker spent most of his formative years...
James Goldsmith
James Goldsmith
Sir James Michael "Jimmy" Goldsmith was an Anglo-French billionaire financier and tycoon. Towards the end of his life, he became a magazine publisher and a politician. In 1994, he was elected to represent France as a Member of the European Parliament and he subsequently founded the short-lived...
Frederick Donald Gosling
James Edward Hanson
Eric Merton Miller
Eric Miller (businessman)
Sir Eric Merton Miller was a British businessman who committed suicide while under investigation for fraud.-Early life:...
John Mills
John Mills
Sir John Mills CBE , born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an English actor who made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades.-Life and career:...
Sigmund Sternberg
Sigmund Sternberg
Sir Sigmund Sternberg, is a British philanthropist, businessman and Labour Party donor.-Early life:Sternberg is Jewish and was born in Hungary. He emigrated to Britain in 1939 and was naturalised as a British citizen in 1947.-Career:...
John Elliott Terry
John Terry (film financier)
Sir John Elliott Terry was a British film financier and lawyer who helped to found the National Film School and served as manager of the National Film Finance Corporation for over 20 years....

Docudrama

The Lavender List
The Lavender List
The Lavender List is a docudrama broadcast on BBC Four in March 2006 about the events that led to the drafting of the "Lavender List", the satirical name for Harold Wilson's 1976 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours.-The List:...

is a UK television docudrama

Docudrama

In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....

broadcast on BBC Four

BBC Four

BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....

in March 2006 based solely on the second version of events put forward by Joe Haines in 2001, events that he claimed led to the drafting of the 1976 Resignation Honours. The BBC was successfully sued for libel by Lady Falkender over the programme and in addition to a financial settlement the BBC agreed never to rebroadcast the programme.

Sources

The Times, Thursday, May 27, 1976; pg. 2; Issue 59714; col B: "Sir Harold's resignation honours list in full".

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Controversy

Political and Public Services List

Life Peer

Companion of Honour

Knighthood

Docudrama

See also

Sources