What's In A Soundbite?

Every PM needs a soundbite. Few PMs, though, are completely at a loss as to what their soundbite actually means. One such was Harold Wilson. He admitted that he had no idea what the “white heat of…industry” meant. Everybody took it to mean a revolution in economic production and the great societal transformation that would result. Up until recently, I also held firm to this apparently reasonable reading. I now have reason to believe it meant something else entirely, especially if Lady Falkender (previously Marcia Williams) had something to do with it.

A little digression is, however, in order. My attention - belatedly - has been brought to a most remarkable event: the licence-fee payer has, courtesy of the BBC, dished out a cool £75,000, and even more extraordinarily promising never to repeat a programme aired earlier in the year, to the mysterious and horse-faced Lady Falkender for broadcasting information already in the public domain - namely, her ermined equineness drew up a list if cronies to be rewarded (known as the “Lavender list”) and that she got five of the best from Harold Wilson. Although the latter was something I was unaware of.

Having felt the “industry” of Harold Wilson’s “white heat” five times, could it be that the gorgeous Lady Five-In-Her (picture above has her at a distance from Wilson, as so often, presumably so as not to be overcome by the PM’s “white heat”) dreamt up this line to keep alive, albeit secretly, for future generations her lust for Harold Wilson’s Member for Cockshire? The whole thing fits together if she did conjure up the soundbite. I’d be happy to hear from anyone who has any insight into this matter. Meanwhile, from beyond the grave, Harold Wilson does to the licence fee-paying public what he did to Lady Falkender.