Smear: Wilson and the Secret State

This book is a revisionist biography of Harold Wilson. The authors assert that, although Wilson was previously perceived as a villain and egotist, unexamined subtext now shows that his behaviour was intelligible and intelligent and that he was one of the cleverest men of his generation. "Smear!" is also in part a parapolitical history of Britain in the '60s and '70s. It claims that the so-called "Wilson plot" of the mid-'70s was merely the climax of continuous clandestine struggles between the Labour Party - and Wilson in particular - and the British secret state and its allies in the Conservative party. Evidence is offered with the intention of showing that MI5 and MI6's plotting was far more extensive than anyone realized. Wilson is resurrected as a genuine radical who attempted to take on the British State - and lost.