Joe Haines, political journalist and press secretary to former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, has died aged 97, a Labour spokesman has confirmed.
A “lifelong Labour supporter, who was fiercely happy with his working class background”, Haines had a popularity for “toughness and loyalty in equal measure”, the spokesman added.
Tony Blair’s former press secretary Alastair Campbell paid tribute to him as a “very good tabloid author” with “acute political judgement”.
Haines, who died at his dwelling in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, had been sick for a while and had misplaced his sight however had remained mentally sharp, Labour mentioned in a press release.
“He spent Christmas and New Yr on a cruise of the Iberian peninsula and not too long ago held a 97th celebration – he was born January 29 1928 – and insisted on dying at dwelling, the place he was taken care of by carers.”
Haines joined Wilson’s Downing Road operation in 1969 throughout his first time period in workplace and went on to turn out to be a part of the Labour chief’s “kitchen cupboard” of shut political advisers.
He stayed by Wilson’s facet after Labour’s shock ejection from energy in 1970 and was granted an expanded function in his second spell in workplace from 1974.
He grew to become an ally of Bernard, now Lord, Donoughue, who arrange and ran Wilson’s coverage unit and would go on to turn out to be an in depth good friend.
However he had a turbulent relationship with one other key Wilson aide, his political secretary Baroness Falkender, previously Marcia Williams, whom he denounced in his later writings and blamed for Wilson’s political demise in 1976.
Haines hit the headlines final yr aged 96, when he claimed Wilson had an affair along with his deputy press secretary Janet Hewlett-Davies.
There have been persistent rumours that Wilson, who was married, had an affair with Baroness Falkender. He repeatedly denied the claims.
Nonetheless, this was the primary time a romantic relationship with Ms Hewlett-Davies had ever been instructed.
Lord Donoughue mentioned Haines had advised him in regards to the affair throughout Wilson’s premiership and the pair had stored the key for almost 50 years.
However they determined to disclose the main points to make sure the “full story” of Wilson’s premiership was advised after Ms Hewlett-Davies died in 2023.
Haines grew up in what he later known as the “bug-ridden, gas-lit slum” of pre-war Rotherhithe, south-east London.
His father died when he was younger and he was introduced up in poverty by his mom, an upbringing he mentioned drew him to affix the Labour Occasion throughout his teenage years.
His profession in journalism started on the age of 14 at The Bulletin, a Glasgow-based mid-morning title, the place he rose up the ranks to turn out to be its political correspondent.
When it ceased publication in 1960 he grew to become political correspondent at The Scottish Day by day Mail.
From there he joined new title The Solar, then a left-leaning broadsheet, within the years earlier than it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch.
It was from right here that he was recruited by Wilson to work in Downing Road, changing into the then-prime minister’s deputy press secretary after which press secretary in 1969, in what can be the ultimate yr of his first spell in energy.
“A quick and sensible author with an acerbic tongue, he received a popularity for toughness and loyalty in equal measure,” Labour mentioned in a press release.
“After Wilson left workplace, Joe wrote a controversial best-seller about his time in politics, The Politics of Energy. He later joined the Day by day Mirror, rising to turn out to be group political editor, assistant editor and a non-executive director underneath Robert Maxwell, whose authorised biography he authored.
“In retirement, Joe continued to take an in depth curiosity in Labour politics, providing recommendation privately and publicly to the occasion and its leaders.”
He was pre-deceased by his spouse Rene they usually had no youngsters.
In a tribute on X, Alastair Campbell mentioned: “Joe was an enormous help to me each after I was a journalist underneath his path on the Mirror, and after I was in Quantity 10, doing for Tony Blair the job he did in two separate intervals for Harold Wilson.
“He was an outstanding tabloid author, and had an incredible thoughts, with acute political judgement. He might be grouchy however he had an incredible coronary heart too.”
Cupboard Workplace Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, who interviewed Haines for his 2022 biography of Wilson, mentioned he had served the previous prime minister with a “fierce loyalty”.
“One of many nice characters of twentieth-century Labour governments, he might be drastically missed,” he added.
