Wilson’s ‘confidant’ dies at 86
HAROLD Wilson’s powerful secretary Baroness Falkender has died aged 86. Lady Falkender, originally Marcia Williams, was the former prime minister’s personal and political secretary.
She was famed for her influence over the then Labour leader and described as his “confidant”.
Talking her role, she once said she “might possibly be the only voice in the room saying things he didn’t want to hear”.
When Harold Wilson resigned in 1976, she was suspected of having played a key role in drafting his controversial honours list, dubbed the “lavender list” because of the colour of the paper some of it was written on.
However, she sued the BBC and won £75,000 in libel damages in 2007 when a drama-documentary THE DUCHESS of York will visit Parliament this week to find ways to help 75 million children affected by conflict and natural disasters across the globe to go to school.
Sarah Ferguson, 59, will tell of her recent trip to Sierra Leone with charity Street Child, of which she is a patron, at the start of the meeting at the House of Lords.
Hosted by General The Lord Dannatt, the Education in Emergencies panel discussion will highlight the damage done by a lack of funding for education in and after emergencies.
Figures show girls are particularly disadvantaged, as they are two-and-a-half times more likely to be out of school than boys in countries affected by conflict.
The former wife of Prince Andrew will say: “[Sierra Leone] is a country that has had everything thrown at it – the brutal civil war, the Ebola crisis which left tens of thousands of children orphaned and the annual rains that cause homes to flood and schools to close.
“What struck me was that every single child or parent that I met, no matter the tragedy or hardship they had suffered, all shared the same top priority: Children wanted to go to school and learn, and adults wanted to be able to send them.”
Schools offer a safe space to children affected by disaster, helping them cope with trauma while protecting them from child labour, forced marriage, sexual exploitation, trafficking and recruitment into armed groups.
The Duchess said: “I hope [the meeting] will bring to people’s attention the damage done to children when education is disrupted during and after emergencies, and the need to work to help them.” wrongly claimed she had compiled the honours list and included people who had personally assisted her. The programme also wrongly suggested she had an affair with married Harold Wilson and used this to blackmail him.
Given a peerage in 1974, she chose not to speak in the Lords. She once said: “My peerage has been a great problem to me because I have never known how to handle it. But now I know myself pretty well. If the press has got me wrong there is nothing I can do.”
‘Children want to go to school’