The Life and Times of Thomas Balogh: A Macaw Among Mandarins

Thomas Balogh (1905–1985) had a conspiratorial nature and deliberately kept to the shadows so that his substantial role in political life has been little known. His predictions were usually right and he looked at economic and political issues from unconventional angles, but he was an exasperating man who thrived on controversy. He made many enemies and had numerous fallings-out, especially with civil servants, and this affected the way his advice was perceived. … This first and only biography covers his life and work: from his youth in Budapest, to his coming to Britain in 1930 and being taken up by Keynes; his advance to being a well known if highly controversial political economist; his reputation as a brilliant though eccentric don at Balliol College, Oxford; his burgeoning interest in politics; and the time of his greatest influence as economic advisor to his close friend Harold Wilson. … Balogh’s interests in North Sea Oil and Gas exploitation and his criticism of governmental failure to exact higher revenue from the oil companies is documented and the analysis is a counterbalance to the official history. June Morris’s interpretation of Balogh’s relationship with Harold Wilson and Marcia Williams and, more particularly and perhaps more controversially, the relationship between Wilson and Williams, does not match those contained in the memoirs of Bernard Donoughue and Joe Haines. And there are correctives to some of the myths surrounding Wilson’s leadership of the Labour Party and his Prime Ministership.