Friends and foes pay tribute

POLITICIANS yesterday remembered Wilson as a prime minister who dominated more than a decade of British life with a mixture of guile, cunning and not a little wit.

After his death at St Thomas' Hospital, London, tributes poured in for the Labour's last leader to win an election and longest-serving premier.

Prime Minister John Major said: 'For four decades Harold Wilson was at the centre of British public life. From the time of his appointment to the Cabinet at the remarkably young age of 31, he served his country as leader of the Labour Party diligently and loyally.' Lord Wilson of Rievaulx, who first entered Parliament in 1945, had been in poor health for years, going through abdominal operations for cancer and later losing his faculties through illness.

His close companion in politics and former Cabinet colleague, Lord Healey, said: 'He was extraordinarily skilful in handling the party and the country through an extraordinarily difficult period. In his first days of office he had the devaluation crisis and the second was dominated by the oil crisis but he kept the show on the road and he kept the country behind him.' Wilson sold Labour to the people after 13 years of Tory rule by presenting it as a modern, forward-looking party, rather as Tony Blair is doing today. Mr Blair said: 'In electoral terms he was Labour's most successful leader and a source of inspiration.' Baroness Castle, a former Cabinet colleague said he had one great principle to hold his party together. 'He was such a likeable person. The idea that he was a schemer for power did not ring true for those of us who knew him.' But former adversary Sir Edward Heath - in power for some of the interim years - was less kind, saying he was a 'great achiever' for the Labour Party but had failed to to solve the economic problems of the day.

Liberal Democrat Peer Lord Jenkins, who as Roy Jenkins was a constant Wilson Cabinet member said he was extremely courteous and had a 'cheeky chappie approach to politics'. He was at his best when things were going badly, 'not one of the greatest of prime ministers but a very good one'.

Lord Callaghan, who succeeded Wilson upon his resignation said his aim had been to remove 'the disfiguring evils of poverty and and create a caring society'.