Harold Wilson is the only post-war leader of any party to serve as Britain''s Prime Minister on two separate occasions. In total he won four General Elections spending nearly eight years in Downing Street. Half a century later he is still unbeaten Labour''s greatest ever election winner. How did he do it - and at what cost? Critics then and now have painted him as an opportunistic political calculator even as a Soviet secret agent. In this powerful new portrait drawing on previously unavailable sources and first-hand parliamentary insight acclaimed biographer Nick Thomas-Symonds reveals a more complex figure. Wilson was a new kind of politician but in his own way this media-savvy harbinger of modernity was also a deeply traditional man whose actions often suggest nothing less than a spiritual mission. In an intriguing paradox Wilson influenced by the distinctively democratic faith of his Yorkshire boyhood united a fractured Labour Party ushering in the cultural and social changes of the ''swinging sixties''. His was the government to decriminalise homosexuality legalise abortion and abolish capital punishment. With a brilliant mind sure-footed political moves and a feel for public opinion he was a survivor who over and over again emerged from desperate crises - even perhaps conspiracies - to lead his party to victory. It is time at last to learn his secrets. . Language: English