Harold Wilson confessed to secret ‘love match’ while PM, former aide reveals

Harold Wilson confessed to an affair during his final year in Downing Street, one of his closest surviving aides has revealed for the first time.

The former Labour prime minister had a secret affair with Janet Hewlett-Davies, his former deputy press secretary who was 22 years his junior, towards the end of his time in No 10.

Another of Wilson’s closest advisers, Bernard Donoughue, who was also made aware of the affair, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that revealing it now was important for the “historical record”.

“And I replied by saying I thought Janet was a lovely and terrific person and I then added, in a Wilsonian way, which I had learned from him ‘and I’m very pleased your relationship is so close and so good’.”

Donoughue said the affair had provided “a little sunshine at sunset” for the prime minister, who was becoming increasingly paranoid about the security services and dealing with a very narrow majority, economic difficulties and, it has been suggested, the early stages of dementia.

He said he found out about the affair “by pure chance” when he saw Hewlett-Davies climb the staircase to Wilson’s room in Downing Street one evening in 1974, long after the press office had finished work.