Joseph Thomas William Haines (born 29 January 1928) is a British journalist and former press secretary to Labour Party leader and Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
Born in Rotherhithe, then an impoverished area of London with appalling housing conditions, Haines was the youngest child of a dock worker who died when he was 2.
The BBC, in an out-of-court settlement with Falkender, paid her £75,000 after these claims were repeated in The Lavender List, a drama documentary written by Francis Wheen and broadcast in 2006.
The Labour MP Brian Sedgemore considered that The Politics of Power was an interesting account, but the chapters about Marcia Williams were the weakest in the book.
At the time Robert Maxwell purchased Mirror Group Newspapers on 12 July 1984, Haines told a meeting of his colleagues that their new proprietor "is a crook and a liar – and I can prove it".
as filled with "rabid homophobia" – prompted an open letter in condemnation from folk singer Lal Waterson, later recorded as a song by her sister Norma as "Reply to Joe Haines".