The Lavender List

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The Lavender List is the satirical name for British Prime Minister Harold Wilson's resignation honours in 1976. It caused controversy as a number of recipients were wealthy businessmen whose principles were considered totally anathemic to those held by the Labour party at the time. One businessman on the list, Lord Kagan, was convicted of fraud in 1980; another, Sir Eric Miller, committed suicide while under investigation for fraud in 1977.

The origin of the name was the later claim that that the head of Wilson's political office, Marcia Williams, had written the original draft on lavender-coloured notepaper. However, no documentary evidence has been found to support this claim, and both Wilson and Williams always denied it.

[edit] Docudrama

The Lavender List was also the title of a docudrama broadcast on BBC Four in March 2006 about the events that led to the drafting of the "Lavender List".

The docudrama was written by Francis Wheen, stalwart of the satirical magazine Private Eye. Wheen claimed that it was based on the political diaries of two members of Wilson's kitchen cabinet, his press secretary Joe Haines and director of policy Bernard Donoughue. It starred Kenneth Cranham as Wilson and Gina McKee as Williams.

The production received a very positive review from Victor Lewis-Smith of the London Evening Standard, another regular contributor to Private Eye. However, most other reviews were negative and it even received some criticism from some of the protagonists with regard to its handling of historical events. In particular, Haines noted what he considered 54 inaccuracies in the production. [1]