User:Sam Blacketer/Slagheaps

The Land Deals affair was a British political scandal in which Prime Minister Harold Wilson was implicated in an attempt to win local support for a property development on land beneath a slag heap. The site had been bought by Tony Field, the brother of Wilson's "Personal and Political Secretary" Marcia Williams, who had himself been occasionally employed in Wilson's office; although not in any sense illegal, Field's business activities appeared to run against Labour Party criticisms of property speculators. When one of Field's business partners played up the political connections by forging a letter purporting to be from Wilson himself, the press became aware of the affair; Wilson issued writs for libel while controversially defending Field's motives.