Yesterday's Men (TV programme)

Yesterday's Men is a British documentary shown in the 24 Hours series (BBC 1) on 17 June 1971. The programme is remembered for provoking a major clash between the Labour Party and the BBC. According to Anthony Smith, the editor of 24 Hours at the time, the film led to "the biggest and most furious row that a television programme in the English language has ever provoked."

Quotes

This exchange was not broadcast during the programme.

• David Dimbleby: You couldn't - you couldn't set our minds at rest on the vexed question of what the Sunday Times did actually pay you for the book?
  Harold Wilson: No, I don't think it's a matter of interest to the BBC or to anybody else.
  Dimbleby: But why ..
  Wilson: If you're interested in these things, you'd better find out how people buy yachts. Do you ask that question? Did you ask him how he was able to pay for a yacht?
  Dimbleby: I haven't interviewed ...
  Wilson: Have you asked him that question?
  Dimbleby: I haven't interviewed him.
  Wilson: Well, has the BBC ever asked that question?
  Dimbleby: I don't know ...
  Wilson: Well, what's it got to do with you, then?
  Dimbleby: I imagine they have ..
  Wilson: Why you ask these question, I mean why, if people can afford to buy £25,000 yachts, do the BBC not regard that as a matter for public interest? Why do you insult me with these questions here?
  Dimbleby: It's only that it's been a matter of ..
  Wilson: All I'm saying, all I'm saying ..
  Dimbleby: … public speculation, and I was giving you an opportunity if you wanted to, to say something about it.
  Wilson: It was not a matter of speculation, it was just repeating press gossip. You will not put this question to Mr. Heath. When you have got an answer to him, come and put the question to me. And this last question and answer are not to be recorded. Is this question being recorded?
  Dimbleby: Well it is, because we're running film.
  Wilson: Well, will you cut it out or not? All right, we stop now. No, I'm sorry, I'm really not having this. I'm really not having this. The press may take this view, that they wouldn't put this question to Heath but they put it to me; if the BBC put this question to me, without putting it to Heath, the interview is off, and the whole programme is off. I think it's a ridiculous question to put. Yes, and I mean it cut off, I don't want to read in the Times Diary or miscellany that I asked for it to be cut out. [pause]
  Dimbleby: All right, are we still running? Can I ask you this, then, which I mean, I .. let me put this question, I mean if you find this question offensive then ..
  Wilson: Coming to ask if your curiosity can be satisfied, I think it's disgraceful. Never had such a question in an interview in my life before.
  Dimbleby: I .. [gasps]
  Joe Haines (Wilson's Press Secretary): Well, let's stop now, and we can talk about it, shall we?
  Dimbleby: No, let's .. well, I mean, we'll keep going, I think, don't you?
  Wilson: No, I think we'll have a new piece of film in and start all over again. But if this film is used, or this is leaked, then there's going to be a hell of a row. And this must be ..
  Dimbleby: Well, I certainly wouldn't leak it ..
  Wilson: You may not leak it but these things do leak. I've never been to Lime Grove without it leaking.
  • Exchange with interviewer David Dimbleby filmed for the documentary broadcast on 17 June 1971. The BBC agreed not to show this portion of the interview, but Wilson's fears of a leak were justified as a transcript was published on page 1 of The Times on June 18, 1971. A fuller transcript appeared in Private Eye during 1972.

About Yesterday's Men

• As for the questions to Mr Wilson, the Governors insisted in a programme "devoted to the personal and political problems encountered in opposition, it was permissible and proper for a BBC reporter to ask Mr Wilson what money he received. ..."
  But that was not, apparently the view taken by the BBC hierarchy immediately after the interview on May 11. On May 12, Mr John Crawley, special assistant to Mr Charles Curran, the Director General, telephoned me to say that he had "no hesitation that the whole of that section will be destroyed, formally lost sight of and forgotten..." I still possess my original shorthand note of that conversation.
  And Mr Curran seemed to agree. Later in May, he sent to Mr Wilson the BBC tape of the interview saying to the best of his knowledge it was the only copy in existence. He even included an internal memo from the producer of the programme Miss [Angela] Pope, to Mr John Grist, head of BBC current affairs, which stated that the "offending question" was on "Take 240/1."
  That was the question deleted by the Governors at the last minute and whose transcript was subsequently leaked to the press.
  The undertaking I thought I had received from Mr Crawley was not the only only one: in the tape donated by Mr Curran, Miss Pope can clearly be heard answering the question whether the offending paragraph would be cut out: "Yes, of course we will."
  • Joe Haines "How Wilson was misled" The Guardian (15 July 1971) p. 12.
  • Joe Haines was Harold Wilson's press secretary.

• Labour politicians, particularly Mr Richard Crossman in the New Statesman have adroitly succeeded in emitting such a smoke screen about the so-called misrepresentations to the participants about the nature of the programme that the truly real issue of the right of Mr Wilson to bully producers over what should or should not be included in a programme about him has been conveniently nudged into the background.
  The facts are that when Mr Wilson insisted that filmed material should be destroyed and that the BBC promise that no leaks about his sensitivity on this matter be leaked to the Press, the question of whether the the programme was trivial or provocative or misleading was not an issue. That came later. ...
  The row started because Mr Wilson insisted on personally censoring a BBC documentary about himself. Should he be given that right? Has any other citizen that right?
  • Milton Shulman "Putting on the Gag" Evening Standard (14 July 1971) p. 15

• But was the BBC's posture of outraged innocence really justified? It has now admitted that the participants in Yesterday's Men should have been told of the real title beforehand: that the title and presentation changed the character of the film from that originally discussed with trusting politicians: that the theme music coloured the presentation and the participants should have known in advance that Yesterday's Men would invariably be compared with the sycophantic programme about Conservative policies the following night and steps should have been taken "to ensure that they could stand up to such comparison."
  Despite these damning admissions of misrepresentation and discrimination, there was ... no criticism of it in newspaper headlines. The Guardian was untypical when it proclaimed: "The BBC rejects charges by Yesterday's Men."
  • Jack Ashley "How the BBC torpedoed itself" The Observer (25 July 1971) p. 8

• The BBC is aware of the conventions and practices relating to access to documents of former Prime Ministers and former Cabinet Ministers. The BBC accepts that Mr Harold Wilson conformed with the approved practice and acknowledges that any suggestion to the contrary would be unfounded.
  It has, however, been represented to the BBC that certain words used in relation to Mr Wilson in the programme Yesterday's Men broadcast on June 17 constitutes an allegation that he has made advantageous use of privileged or secret material in a unjustified fashion in relation to his new book.
  The BBC had no intention of conveying any such impression, but if the programme was so understood by any viewers the BBC expresses its regret.
  • A statement which preceded the previous evening's edition of 24 Hours, as reproduced in "Apology to Wilson on Yesterday's Men"" The Daily Telegraph (7 August 1971), p. 1
  • The BBC paid Harold Wilson's legal costs, but no damages.