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Callaghan left school at 14, and found employment as a tax officer, and then as a union official in Cardiff. He joined the Navy in the Second World War, and was elected Labour MP for Cardiff South in the Labour landslide victory of 1945. He stood for the party leadership in 1963 after the death of Hugh Gaitskell, but lost to Harold Wilson. Wilson however appointed him Chancellor of the exchequer when Labour won the election in 1964, but after the devaluation of the pound, he was moved to become Home Secretary. He also served as Foreign Secretary between 1974 and 1976 during Harold Wilson's second period as Prime Minister. After Wilson's retirement in 1976, he became Prime Minister, making him the only British politician to have held all four top posts in government. He resigned as Labour Party leader in 1980, after the defeat of the Labour Party in the 1979 general election, but served as an MP until 1987, when he became a life peer, and took up a seat in the House of Lords. These cartoons refer to James Callaghan's taxation and spending policies while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
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