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Harold Macmillan

Prime Minister 1957 - 64

When Harold Macmillan became prime minister in 1957, in the aftermath of the disastrous Suez Crisis, he set himself six objectives. The first of these, his top priority, was "to restore the confidence of the people in the government and themselves." (Harold Macmillan Riding the Storm P198) It is revealing that other aims, such as repairing relations with the United States after the Suez Crisis, getting the Suez Canal open again, controlling the economy, all came second to confidence. Macmillan saw himself not as an administrator so much as a figurehead of confidence, and his political nickname, the Great Entertainer is fitting in this respect.

Harold Macmillan was born 10th February 1893, grandson of the founder of Macmillan publishers. After Eton and Balliol College, Oxford he served during World War One in the Grenadier Guards and was injured twice. The first injury was sustained at the Battle of Loos in 1915, the second on the Somme in 1916. His second injury, a shattered thigh, resulted in years of hospitalisation. But by 1920 a full recovery had been made, and Macmillan went to Canada, working for a while with the governor general, whose daughter he married. This was followed by a period working with the family publishing firm. Entry to Parliament came in 1924 as MP for Stockton. Macmillan was known as a rebel, and belonged to an earnest group known as the "YMCA," which did not endear him to the powers that be. Then under Neville Chamberlain, Macmillan was opposed to negotiation with Hitler. His rebelliousness on this point meant that once again he was passed over for high office. But when Winston Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, Macmillan's past rebellion against appeasement became orthodoxy. A job was found for him at the Ministry of Supply, and then at the Colonial Office. This led on to the much more distinguished post of resident minister at Allied Headquarters in North Africa. But just as his career seemed ready to take off, the Conservative Party lost the 1945 election and Macmillan lost his seat. It wasn't until the Conservative Party won 1951's general election under Churchill that another chance came. Churchill made Macmillan minister for housing, and this led on to chancellor in 1955. Then with Anthony Eden's sudden fall following the Suez Crisis, Macmillan unexpectedly found himself prime minister at the beginning of 1957.

 

Cold War display at the Imperial War Museum, London

At this point Macmillan set about trying to catch that amorphous quality of confidence. Confidence can be the result of actual events, just as it can result in events going a certain way. Confidence has an unpredictable life of its own. During Macmillan's premiership there was much that could potentially damage confidence. Firstly Britain's prominent position in the world was changing dramatically. As Macmillan said in Cape Town on 3rd February 1960, a sense of national consciousness in British colonial territories was growing."The winds of change" were blowing through Africa, blowing away the last of Britain's colonial empire. Confidence had to be maintained while this change took place. Britain had to go from world power to plucky underdog, a transition it managed quite well. Retreat from empire was generally presented as a positive thing. Britain was to avoid the French and Portuguese experience of trying to hold onto an empire at any cost in Indo China, Angola and Mozambique. The second difficult issue of confidence was presented by Britain's development of a hydrogen bomb. On 15th May 1957 Britain's first hydrogen bomb was detonated at Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. In some senses there is no doubt that this test was good for confidence. As Macmillan said himself not long before the detonation: "We have made a successful start. When the tests are completed as they soon will be, we shall be in the same position as the United States or Soviet Russia. We shall have made and tested the massive weapons. It shall then be possible to discuss on equal terms." Today countries which already have nuclear weapons moralise about not letting other countries have them. But it has to be said that nations wanting nuclear weapons today are following Macmillan's philosophy of 1957. And yet even as it might feel good to be amongst the nuclear big boys, there was the small matter of potential annihilation, and this could hardly be good for confidence. On balance, however, it seemed that politicians, and the people who elected them, would rather have the confidence of living in a country that had the most powerful weapons.

Cliveden - this image is by Antony McCallum, and is copyright free

Through the late 1950s the trick of maintaining confidence seemed to work. The economy was healthy, and with nuclear weapons Britain felt, on balance, confident about its international position. Macmillan did his best to maintain a positive air even in trying circumstances. In January 1958 chancellor Thorneycroft resigned rather than approve projected estimates for government expenditure. Macmillan cooly referred to these problems as "little local difficulties." In July 1958 British and American troops were landing in Jordan and Lebanon. Macmillan wrote in his diary of trying to hide his "sickening anxiety." But he hid it well, and managed to win 1960's general election. This victory, however, marked a turning point. Confidence is amorphous and cannot be reliably controlled. Events started to move against the government. With the age of empire over, Britain was once again a small island, and small countries often have a tougher time economically than big ones. Realising this Macmillan tried to overcome suspicion of a closer relationship with Europe, and applied for membership of the European Economic Community in 1961. But French president De Gaulle, irritated at British vacillation on Europe veteod the request. Then in 1962 the Profumo Affair blew up. This huge political scandal had its origins in the summer of 1961, when defence minister John Profumo met London model and showgirl Christine Keeler at a pool party at Cliveden in Buckinghamshire. Starting a relationship with her, Profumo was unaware that Keeler was also having a relationship with Yevgeny Ivanov, an official at the Soviety Embassy in London. Warned off by the head of MI5 Profumo ended the relationship with Keeler after only a few weeks. But once details leaked out there was a considerable scandal, which finished Profumo's career, and damaged the government's standing. The official report on the Profumo Affair was released on September 25th 1963. Within a month Macmillan had resigned due to ill health.

Macmillan knew that confidence was the key, but confidence cannot be legislated for. The closest we can perhaps get to legislated confidence is in the workings of religion. As Olga Soffer has pointed out, religions present a higher power in which we can have confidence without questioning competence. While in Britain we still have a monarch whose symbolic authority lies above everyday competence, the trick for prime ministers is harder to carry off. For a while they might be able to maintain a statesman-like air which puts them on a slightly higher plane, and many of them through history have looked for this kind of figurehead role. But in the end a prime minister is involved in the hurly burly of events. While monarchs reign on, prime ministers disappear from office.