Joe Haines, who has died aged 97, was Harold Wilson’s press secretary from 1969 to 1976, the first partisan news manager at No 10 and thus a figure of controversy. He was later political editor of Mirror Group Newspapers under Robert Maxwell. Haines was one of the most talented political journalists of his generation.
He had a great capacity for hard work, a nimble intelligence and an ability to write cogently at high speed. He was also loyal to a fault to two of the most difficult masters. Yet when he turned gamekeeper, as Wilson’s conduit to the Lobby journalists, the qualities that endeared him most to the Prime Minister earned him distrust, and worse, from his former colleagues.
Though he was a genuinely witty man in the Max Miller mould, his forthright, sometimes sneering tone led to their nicknaming him “the anti-press officer”. The point arrived, in June 1975, where the journalists believed that Haines was keeping information from them, and told him as much; Haines, with Wilson’s backing, retaliated by severing relations with the Lobby. Halting the daily off-the-record briefings that had begun under Ramsay MacDonald, Haines denounced them as “barren and fruitless” – as indeed they had become – but the rupture ensured Haines and his master an even worse press.
By early 1976 MPs were accusing Haines of “spitefully” denying information to The Times, an accusation that led Haines to sue the paper for libel, winning an apology. The rift continued until.
