Former PM Harold Wilson’s secret affair with Downing Street aide revealed

Harold Wilson had a secret affair during his second term as prime minister with one of his staff members, it has been revealed.

The Labour leader, who was in office for eight years during the 1960s and 70s, had a relationship with his deputy press secretary Janet Hewlett-Davies during his final year in Downing Street.

His affair, which had remained a secret for over half a century, was revealed last night by Joe Haines, his former press secretary, in an interview with The Times newspaper.

Lord Wilson had long been the subject of infidelity rumours, which he had staunchly denied and had even successfully sued on one occasion.

The married father-of-two had persistently refuted allegations he was conducting an affair with his political secretary, Marcia Williams, later Baroness Falkender, yet his true relationship with Ms Hewlett-Davies remained under wraps.

On Thursday, Lord Wilson’s former adviser Bernard Donoughue told the BBC’s Today programme that both he and Mr Haines had decided to reveal the half-century-old secret following Ms Hewlett-Davies’ death in October last year.

He said: “We kept it secret because we thought it would be used damagingly against him at that time.

“There’s no reason for that now, and we waited until they had both died – Wilson some time ago and Janet just a few months ago, and so I felt as a sometime historian this was important to go in the historical record of Harold Wilson.”

Lord Donoughue said the then-prime minister had cryptically confessed the affair to him during a walk around Number 10 towards the end of his premiership.

He told the BBC: “He, in a very Wilsonian way, because he wasn’t a very direct person, he said he was very pleased I was a friend of Janet.

“So I, knowing him, know that he would not have raised that unless he had got some interest or concern, so I knew that he was asking me: did I know about him and Janet?

“And I replied by saying I thought Janet was a lovely and terrific person and I then added, in a Wilsonian way, which I had learned from him, and I’m very pleased your relationship is so close and so good.

“And that way I let him know that I knew, and then he said that she was a lovely person and he had never been happier.”

He added that the affair had provided “a little sunshine at sunset” for the prime minister, who was becoming increasingly paranoid about the security services and dealing with a very narrow majority, economic difficulties and, it has been suggested, the early stages of dementia.

Mr Haines wrote that he had been informed of the affair by Ms Hewlett-Davies, after catching her climbing the staircase to the prime minister’s room late one evening in 1974, long after the press office had ceased working.

During his time in Downing Street, Lord Wilson was beset by rumours that he was having an affair, but with his political secretary Marcia Williams, whom he ennobled as Baroness Falkender in 1974.

Lady Falkender sued the BBC over a 2006 drama alleging that she had an affair with the late PM and unduly influenced his honours list, receiving £75,000 in libel damages.

Those rumours were always denied, and the secret of his affair with Ms Hewlett-Davies, some 22 years his junior, had managed not to leak out until now.

Lord Wilson’s wife of 55 years, Mary, died in 2018 aged 102.