and introduced equal pay for women. We also have Wilson to thank for standing firm against American pressure to send British troops to Vietnam, something his staunchly pro-US predecessor Hugh Gaitskell would almost certainly have done.
On returning to office in 1974, Wilson was faced with a grim economic scenario: the consequences of a quadrupling of the price of oil caused by the Yom Kippur War. Inflation rose to a post-war record of 24 per cent in 1975, but by the time he left office a year later, it was already beginning to fall.
Wilson's economic achievements are all the more commendable when one considers that he didn't benefit from North Sea oil revenues, which only came on tap in 1980. Then there is Wilson the human being. "Almost without exception, staff and civil servants who worked with him spoke of his personal kindness," recalled colleague Michael Stewart.
Wilson was a good man and a good PM. It's time we gave him a break. 
