Supermac

I was reading in The Daily Mail yesterday of the publication of a considerable tome on the life of Harold Macmillan - Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan. I don't know how big the book is but we are told that the notes at the end stretch to 150 pages. Phew! The writer, D.R. Thorpe must have been thorough. Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister during my formative years. He achieved the job after Anthony Eden's disastrous Suez campaign in 1956 and Eden's resultant ill health. When I went to Leeds University in the autumn of 1959, I remember being a member of the University's Conservative Association for a while. I am not quite sure why I did this. The Labour Party at the time was lead by Hugh Gaitskill, a man for whom I always had the greatest respect. I do remember attending meetings at the beginning of that autumn term and discussing the likely outcome of the General Election which was to take place on 8th October. In those days polls were few and far between and so we had to judge form on gut feelings. The general consensus at those meetings was that the Tories would win but with a much reduced majority. In the event, they increased their majority by 20 seats to over 100. It was then that the image of Supemac had been generated with his 1959 election slogan of "You have never had it so good!" For those of us growing up after the Second World War and those who had survived the Great Depression, it was probably true. As usual the Labour Party had been divided with many of the Left Wing opposed to the leadership of Old Wykhamist Hugh Gaitskill.

I always think that Macmillan was a better Prime Minister than many have been prepared to give him credit for. He was only in office for 6½ years and he did lose touch at the end with the Profumo Scandal and his famous cabinet re-shuffle when he sacked seven of his ministers at one go and prompted the Liberal MP, Jeremy Thorpe to utter that memorable comment in the House of Commons that "Greater love hath no man than he should give his friends to save his life."

Above all things Harold Macmillan had a knowledge and a sense of history. He had a distinguished service record in WW I and like all men who served - as well as many who did not - he had a horror of war. Nevertheless, during the 1930s he supported Winston Churchill in his complete opposition to Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain with their policies of Appeasement. Macmillan was a strange amalgam of the Edwardian gentleman and the political moderniser who developed a rather sharp wit. I remember reading chunks of his memoirs - quite a task, when the books came along in six volumes, each of about 750 pages - and, in spite of their great length, found them quite readable and entertaining. I still remember a paragraph where, writing about a man who was to be put in charge of National Savings - an appointment being criticized by some - Macmillan told us that his appointee was a man of honour and above all suspicion. "After all," he told us, "the man is a member of the Bach Choir." And you can't get a more ringing endorsement than that.

Harold Macmillan was the last retiring Prime Minister to be offered and to accept an earldom. He became the Earl of Stockton - an industrial town that was his first parliamentary seat. He did not go to the House of Lords all that often but he did go there when he was in his 90s to criticise the privatisation policies of Margaret Thatcher, likening it to "Selling off the family silver." He was probably right about that.

His new biographer will, I am sure have a high regard for his subject and will point to the accuracy of his insight on many problems that plague us today. In a list of Do's and Don'ts for politicians that he set out in his later years he had as No.1 "Never invade Afghanistan." I think we will all agree with him on that one.

So many of our leaders from the past show us how we have in recent times been lead by some little men. Many seem to regard Tony Blair as a great leader. He may have lead the Labour Party from electoral oblivion but he was still the worst Prime Minister in my life time.

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