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Woodrow Wyatt

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The Right Honourable
The Lord Wyatt of Weeford
Member of Parliament
forBosworth
In office
8 October 1959 – 29 May 1970
Preceded byArthur Allen
Succeeded byAdam Butler
Member of Parliament
forBirmingham Aston
In office
5 July 1945 – 6 May 1955
Preceded byRedvers Prior
Succeeded byJulius Silverman
Personal details
Born
Woodrow Lyle Wyatt

(1918-07-04)4 July 1918
Surrey,England
Died7 December 1997(1997-12-07)(aged 79)
London, England
Political partyLabour
Spouses
Susan Cox
​
​
(divorced)​
Nora Robbins
​
​
(divorced)​
Lady Moorea Hastings
​
​
(m.1957;div.1966)​
Verushka Banszky von Ambroz (née Racz)
​
​
(m.1966)​
ChildrenPericles Plantagenet James Casati Wyatt (by third wife Moorea Hastings)
Petronella Aspasia Wyatt(by fourth wife Veronica Banszky von Ambroz)
EducationEastbourne College
Alma materWorcester College, Oxford

Woodrow Lyle Wyatt, Baron Wyatt of Weeford(4 July 1918 – 7 December 1997) was a British politician, author,journalistand broadcaster, close to theQueen Mother,Margaret ThatcherandRupert Murdoch.For the last twenty years of his life, he was chairman of the state betting organisationThe Tote.

Early life: 1918−1945

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Born inKingston upon Thames,southwest London, Wyatt was the second son of Robert Harvey Lyle Wyatt, the founder and headmaster ofMilbourne Lodge School,Esher,and his wife Ethel (née Morgan).[1]Born on America's Independence Day, he was named after the American PresidentWoodrow Wilson.[2]

Wyatt was educated atEastbourne CollegeandWorcester College,Oxford,where he readjurisprudenceand graduated with a second-class degree in 1939.[1][3]He volunteered for military service ten days before the outbreak of theSecond World Warwith theSuffolk Regiment[4]and rose to the rank of major. Wyatt was posted toNormandyonD-Dayplus one and wasmentioned in despatches.[1][5][6]

He was nearlycourt-martialledafter an acrimonious exchange with one of his senior officers.[7][8]Wyatt was afterwards posted to India.[9]

Wyatt edited ten volumes ofEnglish Story(1940–50).[7]

Member of Parliament: 1945–1955

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Wyatt waselected to Parliament in 1945as theLabourMP forBirmingham Aston,and retained the seat until the1955 general election.

During theCabinet Mission to India in 1946he served as an informal liaison officer between the mission and theMuslim League.[7][10]Wyatt was a member of the 15-strongKeep Leftgroup of Labour MPs.[11]In the group's pamphlet, published in May 1947, he criticised the government's failure to demobilise the armed forces quickly enough.[12]In 1950, Wyatt visitedIsrael.He praised Israel for its "democratic socialism", which he believed was inspired by "the achievements of British socialism." Wyatt regrettedErnest Bevin's"prejudice against Zionism", because "Israel might easily have been a member state of theBritish Commonwealth"had it not been for thewar in Palestine.Had Israel been part of the Commonwealth, Wyatt said "action might have been taken in time to prevent the loss of Abadan oil."[13]

Clement Attleeappointed Wyatt Under-Secretary at theWar Officein April 1951, an office he held for six months until Labour was defeated in the October 1951 election.[7]

He publishedInto the Dangerous Worldin 1952. Following the splitting of his Aston constituency, Wyatt was unable to find a more promising option than the Conservative-heldGrantham constituency,which he nonetheless fought in 1955, being defeated by 2,375 votes. By coincidence,Granthamwas the home town of his latter-day friendMargaret Thatcher.[citation needed]

Journalism: 1955–1959

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Edward R. MurrowofCBSchose Grantham as one of the seats that he would cover during the 1955 election.Grace Wyndham Goldie,who was the head of the BBC's Current Affairs department, happened to watch the broadcast and was impressed with Wyatt.[7][14]She asked Wyatt to joinRichard Dimblebyin presentingPanoramaas the programme's foreign affairs reporter.[15]He later wrote: "My TV appearances catapulted me into fame.... We had an audience of between 9 and 14 million. When I walked in the street or went into any public place I was recognized and my autograph sought".[16]

In February 1956, during the filming of aPanoramaprogramme inAlgeria,Wyatt and his television crew were attacked by French settlers who had mistaken them for Americans.[17][18]

In April 1956 Bill Carron, a member of the executive of theAmalgamated Engineering Union(AEU), informed Wyatt that Communists were trying to take over the union by falsifying votes for union officials.[19]There were upcoming elections for two posts on the Executive and as the Communists already held three out of the seven seats, there was a possibility of a Communist majority. Wyatt later wrote: "The threat to the economy and to the Labour Party of a huge AEU block vote supporting extremist policies at Labour conferences, was obvious".[20]TheDirector-General of the BBC,SirIan Jacob,authorised Wyatt to produce aPanoramaprogramme on it, which was broadcast on 14 May 1956.[21]Wyatt later claimed that his programme "shook the union world. The voting went up by 40 per cent.... it was enough to defeat the Communist candidates for all three posts. The AEU was saved".[22]

In September 1956 he wrote a series of articles in theIllustratedabout the Communist threat to the trade unions and therefore, due to the influential trade union block vote, to the Labour Party. These were republished in pamphlet-form asThe Peril in Our Midst.[23]In October 1956 he signed a statement urging British participation in theCommon Market.[24]

In June 1957 Wyatt visited South Africa underapartheidforPanorama.He later wrote that the treatment of black South Africans was "worse than that of slaves in Ancient Athens or Rome" and that his programme was "the first time that millions in Britain got a glimpse of what life was really like in South Africa: paradise under a live volcano".[25]Eric Louw,the South African Minister of External Affairs, made an official complaint to the British government about Wyatt's programme.[26]

After Wyatt's programme on Communist vote-rigging in the AEU,Jock Byrnegave Wyatt documents containing evidence that since the war Communists had controlled theElectrical Trades Union(ETU) by falsifying votes.[27]Wyatt received the permission of Ian Jacob to make aPanoramaprogramme on union democracy in the ETU. This was broadcast on 9 December 1957 and Wyatt brought to light thatLes Cannonhad been defrauded of his election to the ETU's Executive by Communist vote-rigging. As union rules prohibited union members from discussing union affairs in public, ETU members on Wyatt's programme had their faces hidden.[28]In January 1958 Wyatt wrote an article on the subject for theNew Statesman.[29]In July 1961, Justice Win of the High Court declared that the 1959 election for the ETU's general secretary was fraudulently won by the CommunistFrank Haxelland that Byrne was the general secretary.[30][31]

Wyatt campaigned in favour of compulsory secret ballots for union elections, which was eventually embodied in theEmployment Act 1988.[32]

In January 1958 the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party rejected a request from the Holborn and St Pancras constituency Labour Party that Wyatt should be removed from the list of prospective parliamentary candidates due to his "anti-working class activity".[33][34]

Wyatt was a close figure within theInformation Research Department (IRD),a secret branch of theForeign Officededicated to publishing misinformation, pro-colonial, and anti-communist propaganda. The IRD used bribes to convince Wyatt to publish anti-communist propaganda, which the IRD would boost by using British diplomatic missions for distribution.[35][36]Due to his role as a prime outlet for IRD propaganda, Wyatt is of interest to historians studying theCold Warand British propaganda.[37][38][39]

Member of Parliament: 1959–1970

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He returned toParliament in 1959as member forBosworth,Leicestershire. According to Wyatt, Gaitskell told him that the Opposition Chief Whip,Bert Bowden,vetoed his appointment to Gaitskell's Shadow Cabinet.[40]

In a speech to the Hinckley branch of the AEU in June 1960, Wyatt called the General Secretary of theTransport and General Workers' Union,Frank Cousins,"the bully with the block vote".[41]After Labour's fourth successive electoral defeat in1992,Anthony Howardsaid that Labour's own polling evidence suggested that Labour could not win another election so long as it was identified with the trade unions: "Woodrow Wyatt's description of the late Frank Cousins...as" the bully with the block vote "was not just a damaging phrase: in the electorate's perception of Labour it lit a candle that has never really gone out".[42]

In November 1961, Wyatt wrote an article forThe Guardianand delivered a speech in Leicester, both times advocating aLib–Lab pactto keep the Conservatives out of power.[43][44]According to Wyatt, a furious Gaitskell telephoned him, saying: "Why don't you get out of the Party and stop embarrassing me?"[45]In January 1962, after Wyatt repeated this idea in an article for theNew Statesman,Gaitskell delivered a speech to the Bosworth Labour Party (in Wyatt's presence) rejecting it.[46]TheGeneral Secretary of the Labour Party,Morgan Phillips,wrote to Wyatt, warning him that unless he dropped his advocacy for a Lib−Lab pact, he would be expelled from the party. Wyatt acquiesced.[47]

He was seen by some as a maverick and by others as a man of firm convictions which made him temperamentally unsuited to 'toeing the party line'. He rebelled in the 1964–1970 parliaments over there-nationalisation of the steel industry.His thirteen interviews withBertrand Russellwere published asBertrand Russell Speaks His Mindin 1960. Wyatt was defeated at the1970 general election.

Journalism and The Tote: 1970–1997

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After ceasing to be an active politician, Wyatt was appointed by the Home Secretary,Roy Jenkins,as Chairman of theHorserace Totalisator Board,a post he held from 1976 to 1997. At first he was an active chairman, rooting out corruption, but was later seen as complacent and considered to have allowed the Tote to stagnate.[48]According toJohn McCririck:"The Tote had been bankrupt and he turned it round. He made it a force in betting. When he became chairman, the Tote was a total mess but he put it on the map by his sheer personality and flair along with the introduction of computerisation".[5]However, a House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee produced[when?]a report critical of Wyatt.[5]

Wyatt was a prolific journalist, with a diverse range of interests, and by the late 1970s he had crossed the political spectrum and became an admirer ofMargaret Thatcher.After Thatcher's election as Conservative leader in 1975, she arranged a meeting with Wyatt. He later wrote: "She won me over. The strength of her determination and the simplicity of her rational ideas uncluttered by intellectual confusion convinced me that she was the first party leader I had met, apart from Gaitskell, who might check Britain's slide and possibly begin to reverse it. She did not seem much like a Tory but she had the Tory Party to work for her, which was a useful start".[49]

In July 1979, Roy Jenkins recorded in his diary after meeting Wyatt and Thatcher: "Woodrow is on very close terms with her, talks freely, easily, without self-consciousness, says anything he wants to".[50]Wyatt would usually ring Thatcher after midnight or on Sunday mornings where he would give her advice.[51]According toJohn Campbell,Thatcher did not always accept Wyatt's advice but "her ministers got sick of being told what 'Woodrow says' about this or that policy".[51]He claims that whenGeoffrey Howecomplained in his memoirs that Thatcher preferred to listen to her private "voices" rather than to her colleagues and official advisers, "it was first and foremost of Wyatt that he was thinking".[51]

During this period hisNews of the Worldcolumn, 'The Voice of Reason', was regularly attacked by Thatcher's political opponents. His column reached an audience of approximately seventeen million readers.[52]During this time he was vocal in opposing sanctions against apartheid South Africa, writing thatNelson Mandelaand theANCwere trying to establish "a communist-style black dictatorship".[53]Wyatt visited South Africa in 1986 and during a visit to a game reserve he saw black and white children playing together, leading him to remark: "They are comrades. Oh, if the rest of South Africa could be like that".[54]He also interviewedPresident Bothaand put to him that he should unban the ANC.[55]

He wasknightedin 1983[56]and was created alife peeron 3 February 1987 with the titleBaron Wyatt of Weeford,ofWeefordin theCounty of Staffordshire.[57]The Wyatt family had lived at Weeford in the seventeenth century.[58]

His autobiography,Confessions of an Optimist,was published in 1985.

In the mid-1980s he played a key role asRupert Murdoch's fixer in brokering negotiations with the electricians' union, aidingNews Internationalto move toWapping.[48]He set up a newspaper and printing business with his third wife, which soon failed.[48]On 31 August 1986 thePress Councilcensured Wyatt for an article he wrote in his "Voice of Reason" column. Wyatt said that although Britain's Asian and black population were "generally well behaved", a substantial part of the latter were "lawless, drug-taking, violent and unemployable".[59][60]

After Thatcher's fall in 1990, Wyatt supportedJohn Major.However, he temporarily dropped his support for Major after he sacked his Chancellor,Norman Lamont,in 1993. Wyatt helped Lamont write his resignation speech.[5]

In 2000, the journalistPetronella Wyatt,his daughter by his fourth marriage, published a book entitledFather, Dear Father: Life with Woodrow Wyatt.

The Journals

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Wyatt's diary cover (published posthumously asThe Journals of Woodrow Wyattby Macmillan, edited by Sarah Curtis)

Wyatt's caustic, candid and mischievously indiscreet diaries were published posthumously in three volumes asThe Journals of Woodrow Wyattby Macmillan and edited by Sarah Curtis. They are: Volume 1, 1985–88 (1998); Volume 2,Thatcher's Fall and Major's Rise,1989–92, (1999); and Volume 3,From Major to Blair(2000), which spans the period from 1992 until three months before his death in December 1997.

Andrew Neilin theNew Statesmanwrote of the diaries: "Wyatt has done the country a service in giving us the unalloyed truth about how this country's governing and social elite still operates", and theDaily Expresscalled the journals "The most explosive political memoirs of modern times". However, the historianRobert Rhodes James"advised caution in believing them: 'Even if the diarist is not attempting to give a deliberately false version, a talented writer can easily over-dramatise...' There is plenty of internal evidence that Wyatt should be approached with a similar caution."[61]Lord Blake,the Tory historian, called Wyatt a "notorious liar".[62]

Charles Moore,Thatcher's authorised biographer, claims Wyatt's journals "are a good source for the 'off duty' remarks and attitudes of many of the leading figures of the age, including Mrs Thatcher. They often reveal her private reactions to public events when she considered herself among friends".[63]

Personal life

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Wyatt was married four times, to:

  • First (div): Susan Cox, no issue.[62]She was a fellow student at Oxford.[48]
  • Second (div): Nora Robbins, no issue.[62]She was his secretary.[48]
  • Third (1957, dissolved 1966): Lady Moorea Hastings (1928–2011) daughter of the16th Earl of Huntingdonand a granddaughter ofLuisa Casati;one son: Hon. Pericles Plantagenet James Casati Wyatt.[48]
  • Fourth (1966): Veronica "Verushka" Banszky von Ambroz (née Racz), a Hungarian and widow of a surgeon;[62][64]one daughter: journalistPetronella Wyatt(b. 1968).

He arranged for cousins to take care of his first child when his wife made it clear she was not interested in doing so.[48]When they divorced, he was awarded custody of his son.

Wyatt leased for a time the 18th-century house known asConock Old Manor,near Devizes in Wiltshire; he was living there in 1970.[65]

Wyatt was a first cousin ofEngland Test cricketerBob Wyatt.[66]He was a descendant of the architecturalWyatt family.[67][68][58]He was first cousin toHonor Wyatt,the mother of musicianRobert Wyatt,whose alliance with theCommunist Party of Great Britain,juxtaposed with Woodrow Wyatt's right-wing politics, led to Robert Wyatt referring to his relative as an "appalling man with a sadistic sense of superiority".[69]

He died inCamden,north London, on 7 December 1997 aged 79.[70]He is buried in St Mary's churchyard inWeeford,just south of Lichfield, Staffordshire, where the Wyatt family originated.

Arms

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Coat of arms of Woodrow Wyatt
Crest
Out of a Mural Coronet Argent a Demi Lion rampant Sable charged on the shoulder with an Estoile of the last and holding an Arrow point downwards proper
Escutcheon
Gules on a Fess Or between three Boars' Heads erased Argent two Lions passant Sable
Supporters
Dexter: a Boar Argent bristled hooved and tusked Or gorged with a Collar dancetty Gules; Sinister: a Lion Sable gorged with a Collar dancetty Gold
Motto
Vi Attamen Honore[71]

Works

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  • Into the Dangerous World(1952)
  • Southwards from China: A Survey of South East Asia since 1945(1952)
  • The Peril in Our Midst(1956)
  • Bertrand Russell speaks his Mind(1960)
  • Turn Again, Westminster(1973)
  • What's Left of the Labour Party?(1977)
  • To The Point(1981)
  • Confessions of an Optimist(1985)
  • The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt. Volume One(1998)
  • The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt. Volume Two: Thatcher's Fall and Major's Rise(1999)
  • The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt. Volume Three: From Major to Blair(2000)

Notes

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  1. ^abcCurtis, Sarah, ed. (1999).The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt.Vol. 1. London: Pan. p. xix.ISBN978-0330390064.
  2. ^Wyatt, Woodrow (1987).Confessions of an Optimist.London: Collins. p. 35.ISBN978-0002179348.
  3. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 77)
  4. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 78)
  5. ^abcdBeard, Matthew; Evans, Richard (8 December 1997). "Attlee's young star who went on to back Thatcher".The Times.London. p. 9.
  6. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 97)
  7. ^abcdeLancaster, Terence(9 December 1997). "Lord Wyatt of Weeford".The Times.London. p. 21.
  8. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 101)
  9. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 106-113)
  10. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 145-163)
  11. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 168)
  12. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 169)
  13. ^Camilla (3 January 2017)."The Labour Party, anti-Semitism and Zionism • International Socialism".International Socialism.Retrieved24 June2024.
  14. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 231)
  15. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 238)
  16. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 242)
  17. ^'Alarm Over Algeria',The Times(28 February 1956), p. 8.
  18. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 242-243)
  19. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 149-250)
  20. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 250)
  21. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 250-251)
  22. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 251).
  23. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 254)
  24. ^'Britain Urged To Cooperate',The Times(8 October 1956), p. 4.
  25. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 248-249)
  26. ^'A "Distorted" Programme',The Times(5 July 1957), p. 10.
  27. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 252)
  28. ^'E.T.U. attacked on television',The Times(10 December 1957), p. 6.
  29. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 256)
  30. ^'Judge Declares Mr. Byrne To Be E.T.U. Secretary',The Times(4 July 1961), p. 10.
  31. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 259)
  32. ^Julian Lewis, 'Woodrow Wyatt',The Times(17 December 1997), p. 19.
  33. ^'News in Brief',The Times(23 January 1958), p. 7.
  34. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 256-257)
  35. ^Lashmar, Paul; Oliver, James (1988).Britain's Secret Propaganda War 1948-1977.Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing. pp. 111, 119.
  36. ^Defty, Andrew (2005).Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda 1945-1953: The Information Research Department.eBook version: Routledge. p. 259.
  37. ^(Lashmar & Oliver 1988,p. 106)
  38. ^Wilford, Hugh (2013).The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune?.Abingdon: Routledge. p. 67.
  39. ^Blotch, Jonathan; Fitzgerald, Patrick (1983).British Intelligence and Covert Action: Africa, Middle-East and Europe since 1945.London: Junction Books. p. 103.
  40. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 272)
  41. ^' "Bully of the Block Vote" ',The Times(11 June 1960), p. 12.
  42. ^Anthony Howard,'Labour needs its carthorse',The Times(24 June 1992), p. 14.
  43. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 277)
  44. ^'Labour Pact With Liberals Urged',The Times(20 November 1961), p. 6.
  45. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 278)
  46. ^'Mr. Gaitskell Says No Liberal Pact',The Times(27 January 1962), p. 8.
  47. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 280)
  48. ^abcdefg"To Move and To Shake"byGeraldine Bedell.The Independent on Sunday,24 November 1996.
  49. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 343)
  50. ^Jenkins, Roy(1989).European Diary, 1977−1981.London: Collins. p. 480.ISBN978-0002179768.
  51. ^abcCampbell, John(2003).Margaret Thatcher, Volume Two: The Iron Lady.London: Jonathan Cape. p. 34.ISBN978-0099516774.
  52. ^(Curtis 1999,p. xii)
  53. ^The Guardian (6 December 2013)."The Conservative party's uncomfortable relationship with Nelson Mandela".TheGuardian.com.
  54. ^(Curtis 1999,p. 93)
  55. ^(Curtis 1999,p. 95)
  56. ^"No. 49575".The London Gazette.20 December 1983. p. 16802.
  57. ^"No. 50824".The London Gazette.6 February 1987. p. 1631.
  58. ^abBurke's Landed Gentry1952, 'Wyatt of Hurst Barton Manor formerly of Bryn Gwynant', pp. 2805-2806
  59. ^'Race rebuke writer is defended by Tory MP',The Times(1 September 1986), p. 4.
  60. ^(Curtis 1999,p. 186)
  61. ^David Sexton, "Don't believe all those diary droolings",The Evening Standard(12 October 1998), p. 11.
  62. ^abcd"Woodrow, Verushka, Pericles and Petronella: welcome to the world of the Wyatts".news.independent.co.uk.1 October 2007. Archived fromthe originalon 1 October 2007.Retrieved24 June2021.
  63. ^Charles Moore,Margaret Thatcher, Volume One: Not For Turning(London: Allen Lane, 2013), p. 467, n.
  64. ^THE CLARENCE POSTERITY - The Third Plantagenet: Duke of Clarence, Richard III's Brother
  65. ^Baggs, A. P.; Crowley, D. A.; Pugh, Ralph B.; Stevenson, Janet H.; Tomlinson, Margaret (1975). "Parishes: Chirton". In Crittall, Elizabeth (ed.).A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 10.Victoria County History.University of London. pp. 60–71.Retrieved11 May2022– via British History Online.
  66. ^Martin-Jenkins, Christopher;Coldham, James (1980).The complete who's who of test cricketers.London: Orbis Pub. p. 151.ISBN978-0-85613-283-4.OCLC7171637.
  67. ^(Wyatt 1987,p. 22)
  68. ^O'Dair, Marcus (2015).Different every time: the authorised biography of Robert Wyatt.Serpent's Tail. p. 6.ISBN978-1-84668-760-0.OCLC914292305.
  69. ^(O'Dair 2015,p. 20-22)
  70. ^(Lancaster 1997,p. 21)
  71. ^"Life Peerages - W".www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk.Archivedfrom the original on 4 October 2013.Retrieved24 June2021.
[edit]
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament forBirmingham Aston
1945–1955 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament forBosworth
1959–1970 		Succeeded by
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