Ferdinand Mount's diary: Supermac was guilty!

You have to hand it to Supermac. Fifty years after the event, he is still running rings round them. The esteemed Vernon Bogdanor (The Spectator, 18 January) tells us that Iain Macleod was wrong in claiming that Sir Alec had been foisted on the Conservative party by a magic circle of Old Etonians. On the contrary, the soundings had ‘revealed a strong consensus for Home. So Macmillan was not slipping in a personal recommendation when he advised the Queen to send for him — he was doing precisely what he was supposed to do.’

This is a deliciously selective account. When Macmillan decided to resign in October 1963, not because he had prostate cancer (he didn’t and knew he didn’t, but he was tired and welcomed the excuse to get out), Tory MPs and Cabinet ministers were originally asked three questions about his successor: who’s your first choice, who’s your second and who would you oppose? Then Hailsham, Macmillan’s original preference, made a fool of himself at Blackpool, and Macmillan added a fourth question: what about Lord Home? This nudge was designed to create the impression that there was a groundswell for Sir Alec. There wasn’t, apart from the one created by Macmillan’s own wave machine.

The point is that the Prime Minister himself was well aware of this. On the day when the Lord Chancellor and the chief whip had begun quizzing their colleagues again, he noted in his diary that ‘the basic situation was the same — the party in the country wants Hogg; the Parliamentary Party wants Maudling or Butler; the Cabinet wants Butler. The last ten days have not altered this fundamental fact.’ No mention of Home at all, but Home was what the poor mutts got, only three days later.