I'm an optimist, but an optimist who carries a raincoat.

As early as the late 1960s he had been telling intimates like his doctor Sir Joseph Stone (later Lord Stone of Hendon) that he did not intend to serve more than eight or nine years as Prime Minister. Pressure grew for the abolition of the selective principle underlying the "eleven plus" and replacement with Comprehensive schools which would serve the full range of children (see the article Debates on the grammar school). Home was an aristocrat who had given up his title as Lord Home to sit in the House of Commons and become Prime Minister upon Macmillan's resignation.

Wilson's first period in office in particular was notable for substantial legal changes in a number of social areas; though they were generally not at the top of his personal agenda. Overall Wilson is seen to have managed a number of difficult political issues with considerable tactical skill including such potentially divisive issues for his party as the role of public ownership British membership of the European Community and the Vietnam War in which he consistently resisted US pressure to involve Britain and send British troops; even "dissociating" his Government from the bombing of Hanoi. James Harold Wilson Baron Wilson of Rievaulx KG OBE FRS FSS PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976 winning four general elections.