A story involving an alleged 1968 coup attempt against then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson is just one of the subjects covered in the latest release of classified files from the National Archives at Kew in London.
The crown coup
Reports of an alleged 1968 government coup attempt recreated for the Netflix series The Crown have “no basis in fact,” according to one of the senior men charged years later over the plot.
Senior publisher Cecil King wrote in 1981 to the then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, following reports in international newspapers that he, along with Lord Mountbatten and Lord Cudlipp, had conspired to topple Wilson’s ailing Labor government more than a decade earlier .
Nothing materialized on the plot and King, chairman of the International Publishing Corporation (IPC), which counts the Daily Mirror among its titles, described the story as “nonsense”.
He accused Wilson, who was legally ousted by Ted Heath’s Conservatives in the 1970 general election, of fueling allegations of a coup in the press in 1981 and of influencing his removal from the IPC board.
King told Armstrong that the Mirror was simply “cold” towards Wilson’s premiership due to the fact that he “wasn’t prime minister”.
In his 1981 letter, King wrote: “As you may have noticed, I have recently been accused in some newspapers of planning a coup d’état—perhaps military, perhaps not—to overthrow this government in 1968. … Unlike most newspaper stories, this one had no basis in fact.”
The coup allegation was subsequently published in The Times newspaper and prompted then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to raise the matter in the House of Commons.
UK ‘attractive destination’ for asylum seekers
New Labour’s attempts to tackle immigration were partly thwarted by a UN protocol which meant the UK was essentially seen as an “attractive destination” for asylum seekers, internal memos show.
The Home Office permanent secretary from 1997 to 2000, Sir David Omand, said the 1951 Refugee Convention – which states that refugees should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their safety – and the “generous reception” given to people from the former Yugoslavia is partly to blame.
His concerns were contained in a memo to the then cabinet secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, in March 2000. Home Office figures at the time showed there were 6,680 asylum applications that month, up from 6,110 the previous month.
In his memo, contained in the latest tranche of declassified official files released by the National Archives at Kew, Omand wrote: “The intake of asylum seekers is now double what it was when we published our plans and targets in 1998.
“It was not our political intention, but we have a situation where the UK is an attractive destination for asylum seekers… The message has gone back that the UK is a civilized place and that has spread across much of Eastern Europe. Changing this message is difficult.
Then Prime Minister Tony Blair replied: “Yes, but we need to tackle the root causes of this explosion in numbers and it will take tough action to do that.”
The Composer’s Secret Medicine Request
A British composer beloved by the royal family secretly sought help from the state to supply him with illegal quantities of controlled drugs, previously classified documents reveal.
Sir William Walton, whose well-known composition Crown Imperial was used at the Queen’s coronation in 1953 and this year’s platinum jubilee celebrations, is said to be “heavily addicted” to Ritalin, often used to treat attention deficit disorder attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Records show Susanna Walton, the composer’s wife, asked a police inspector in 1982 to help ship a year’s worth of supplies to his home on the island of Ischia, near Naples in Italy, even though it had recently become illegal to do so in such large quantities. volumes.
The officer then contacted Armstrong, who was still cabinet secretary, to ask for his advice.
Correspondence suggests that Lady Walton was aware of the change in drug rules before they came into effect, but she is said to have “rather lived with her head in the clouds” and nothing was done.
The Italian embassy said Ritalin was available in small quantities but would not sanction a year’s supply – believed to be around 2,000 tablets.
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