Who was Harold Macmillan?
Harold Macmillan came from a London publishing family and was badly hurt several times in the First World War. In the 1930s he sat for Stockton-on-Tees, saw heavy unemployment first hand, and wrote The Middle Way. From 1951 he held posts in housing, defence, foreign affairs and the Treasury. Suez brought him to Number 10 in January 1957, and in 1959 he increased his majority. Money troubles, a big cabinet purge in 1962 and the Profumo scandal marked his last years. He quit in October 1963 because of illness and died in 1986.
Political views
- Set out a centrist creed in The Middle Way (1938), which joined private business with state planning.Source: en.wikipedia.org
- Hit the goal of 300,000 new homes a year by 1953 while housing minister.Source: en.wikipedia.org
- Was set on stopping a return to the mass unemployment of the 1930s, and told voters they had never had it so good.Source: gov.uk
- Gave the 1960 wind of change speech, which signalled distance from apartheid and a faster end to colonial rule.Source: gov.uk
- Mended ties with Washington after Suez and kept Britain's nuclear deterrent.Source: gov.uk
- Sought Britain's entry to the European Economic Community, but France vetoed it in January 1963.Source: gov.uk
- Took part in talks that produced the 1963 treaty banning most nuclear tests, signed with America and the Soviets.Source: gov.uk
Legacy
Admirers say Macmillan restored national confidence after Suez, oversaw growing prosperity, rebuilt the alliance with America and handled the retreat from empire with little fighting. Critics say his governments ignored deep weaknesses in the British economy and that by the early 1960s his manner seemed out of touch. His government was criticised over colonial emergencies, including the deaths of 11 detainees at the Hola camp in Kenya in 1959, and it was hurt further by the Profumo affair. In old age he attacked Margaret Thatcher's privatisations, which he is widely said to have compared to selling the family silver.