Editing Harold Wilson (section)

==Cabinet minister, 1947–1951==
===Bonfire of controls===
Wilson was appointed [[President of the Board of Trade]] on 29 September 1947, becoming, at the age of 31, the youngest member of a British Cabinet in the 20th century. Initially Wilson favoured a more interventionist policy, seeking requirements for government officials to be seated on private [[boards of directors]], further [[price controls]], and [[nationalisation]]s of [[Private sector|private industries]] which opposed government policy. However, he abandoned these plans after his colleagues disagreed.<ref>{{cite book |last=Thorpe |first=Andrew |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-349-25305-0 |title=A History of the British Labour Party |date=1997 |publisher=Macmillan Education UK |isbn=978-0-333-56081-5 |location=London |pages=122 |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-25305-0 }}</ref> He made it a priority to reduce [[Rationing in the United Kingdom|wartime rationing]], which he referred to as a "bonfire of controls".<ref name=autogenerated1/> Wilson decided that the massive number of wartime controls was slowing the conversion to peacetime prosperity and he was committed to removing them as fast as possible.<ref>Pimlott (1992) pp 135–132.</ref>  He ended rationing of potatoes, bread and jam, as well as shoes and some other clothing controls.

In November 1948 Wilson announced his Board of Trade had removed the need for over 200,000 licences and permits.  By March 1949 he promised to remove the need for another 900,000, although meat remained in short supply and was still rationed, as was petrol.<ref>W. N. Medlicott, ''Contemporary England 1914–1964'' (1967) p. 506.</ref>  Henry Irvine argues that Wilson's success with the bonfire of controls established his reputation as a modernizing specialist, with both the general public and the political elite. Irving also argues that the selection timing and especially the publicity Wilson devoted to the bonfire represented the emerging skills of a brilliant young politician. While each major bonfire was justified in terms of technical economic advantages, it was selected and publicised widely to reach the largest possible audience so that everybody could understand that their bread and jam became free again.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Henry |last=Irving |title=The birth of a politician: Harold Wilson and the bonfires of controls, 1948–9 |journal=Twentieth Century British History |volume=25 |issue=1 |date=2014 |pages=87–107 |doi=10.1093/tcbh/hws044 |url=http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/2324/2/The%20birth%20of%20a%20politician_%20Harold%20Wilson%20and%20the%20bonfires%20of%20controls,%201948-9.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180720140318/http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/2324/2/The%20birth%20of%20a%20politician_%20Harold%20Wilson%20and%20the%20bonfires%20of%20controls%2C%201948-9.pdf |archive-date=20 July 2018 }}</ref>

===Three ambitious young men===
In mid-1949, with Chancellor of the Exchequer [[Stafford Cripps]] having gone to Switzerland in an attempt to recover his health, Wilson was one of a group of three young ministers, all of them former economics dons and wartime civil servants, convened to advise Prime Minister Attlee on financial matters. The others were [[Douglas Jay]] ([[Economic Secretary to the Treasury]]) and [[Hugh Gaitskell]] ([[Minister of Fuel and Power]]), both of whom soon grew to distrust him. Jay wrote of Wilson's role in the debates over whether or not to devalue sterling that "he changed sides three times within eight days and finished up facing both ways". Wilson was given the task during his Swiss holiday of taking a letter to Cripps informing him of the decision to devalue, to which Cripps had been opposed.<ref>Dell 1997, pp. 120, 122.</ref> Wilson had tarnished his reputation in both political and official circles.<ref name="autogenerated1"/> Although a successful minister, he was regarded as self-important. He was not seriously considered for the job of Chancellor when Cripps stepped down in October 1950—it was given to Gaitskell—possibly in part because of his cautious role during devaluation.<ref>Dell 1997, p. 137.</ref><ref>Pimlott (1992) pp 133–153.</ref>

Wilson was becoming known in the Labour Party as a left-winger, and joined [[Aneurin Bevan]] and [[John Freeman (British politician)|John Freeman]] in resigning from the government in April 1951 in protest at the introduction of [[National Health Service]] (NHS) medical charges to meet the financial demands imposed by the [[Korean War]]. At this time, Wilson was not yet regarded as a heavyweight politician: [[Hugh Dalton]] referred to him scornfully as "Nye [Bevan]'s dog".<ref>Campbell 1987, p. 233.</ref>

After Labour lost the [[1951 United Kingdom general election|1951 election]], he became the Chairman of Keep Left, Bevan's political group. At the bitter Morecambe Conference in late 1952, Wilson was one of the [[Bevanites]] elected as constituency representatives to Labour's [[National Executive Committee of the Labour Party|National Executive Committee]] (NEC), whilst senior right-wingers such as Dalton and [[Herbert Morrison]] were voted off.<ref>Campbell 1987, p. 275.</ref>