During the last years of Harold Macmillan's life, he attended a dinner in honour of Henry Kissinger.

Macmillan 'began to show signs of extreme restlessness'. He thought Kissinger was speaking for far too long.

A mini thread. 🧵

Macmillan pulled back his chair, which scraped along the floor.

All eyes turned on him. Some of the others guests thought the former premier might be ill.

Kissinger ploughed on with his speech.

The next Conservative conference will be a critical moment in the Tory leadership race - perhaps even as consequential as the Blackpool conference of 1963.

So, what happened on the Fylde coast 61 years ago, and what might it tell us about this year's conference?

A thread.🧵 As members gathered in Blackpool, prime minister Harold Macmillan was expected to address the conference's closing rally.

But in the opening stages of the annual seaside jamboree, news began to trickle in that Macmillan was going into hospital. He needed prostate surgery.

3,671 years.

That’s the combined Lords experience of life peers over the age of 80.

So, if Labour goes ahead with their plan to remove them, who exactly will they be kicking out?

A thread. 🧵





There are 165 current life peers who are 80 or above. They include:

Lord Heseltine (91), former Deputy Prime Minister.

Lord Clarke (84), former Home Secretary, Chancellor and Father of the House of Commons.

Baroness Jay (84), former Leader of the House of Lords.

‘Is it possible, Mr Speaker, for Members to rise in their places and stand in silence in support of this protest against disgusting barbarism?’

‘That should be a spontaneous act by the House as a whole,’ the Speaker replied.

MPs then rose and stood. In silence.

A thread.🧵 That exchange took place on 17th December 1942 when Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, told the House of Commons (at the time meeting in the Lords) what was becoming known about the holocaust.

It was Heath vs Wilson for the third time, with a supporting cast comprising some of the most vibrant figures in post-war politics.

#OnThisDay 50 years ago, the February 1974 election took place.

Here's the story of election night, as told through the BBC's coverage. 🧵





Before the votes are counted, the key question is how well the Liberals have done.

The pundits agree the campaign went their way and Robert McKenzie wonders whether they are on the brink of achieving 25% and making serious gains.

‘Dalyell, come here!’

The young Tam Dalyell, among the most junior of MPs having been elected in a by-election just a year earlier, turned around to see who wanted his attention.

It was the prime minister, Harold Macmillan.

A thread.🧵

Dalyell had asked Macmillan a question in the Commons, specifically will he:

‘ensure that legislation presented to this House is not drafted in obscure language.’

Macmillan replied briefly by citing the need for precision about complex and technical issues.

Harold Wilson's advice on answering tricky questions:

'You know, it's taken me a long time to realise it, but if you don't like a question all you've got to do is preface your answer with “As I said in the House of Commons...” and everyone goes to sleep...'

A brief thread. 🧵 Wilson went on to say that if you begin your answer that way, journalists don't 'bother to write down what you're saying.'

'I ought to have tumbled to it long before but there's nothing like suggesting it's all stale stuff for distracting attention from an awkward question.’

In the run up to the next election, Labour will hold talks with civil servants on their plans for government.

It's a sensible way to prepare for an election, but the convention is only six decades old.

A thread on the 'Douglas-Home rules'. 🧵 In 1964, two issues made it important that the Opposition and the Civil Service understood each other.

(1) Labour had been out of office for 13 years. Only three members of the Shadow Cabinet (Harold Wilson, James Griffiths and Patrick Gordon Walker) had any Cabinet experience.

Scandal. Seaside conspiracies. Murky consultations. Midnight plots. And a Downing Street showdown.

The events surrounding Harold Macmillan’s resignation #OnThisDay in 1963 had it all.

A thread of the dramatic events of sixty years ago.🧵 Firstly, some context: 1963 had been a miserable year for Macmillan. European rejection, the Profumo scandal and swirling rumours about whether he should resign.

By the summer, Macmillan was beginning to wonder whether he had it in him to fight the next election.

Did Margaret Thatcher care about Liverpool?

Eric Heffer, the firebrand socialist MP who once called her a "stupid woman" in the Commons, thought she did.

"I felt that she was worried... and prepared to listen."

Here's the story of their remarkable 1981 meeting. 🧵

It was the Toxteth riots that brought Thatcher and Heffer together.

During a heated exchange in the Commons about the riots, Heffer lashed out at the Prime Minister. "I was so incensed by her lack of understanding and genuine sympathy towards the city's problems," he said.

On this day 60 years ago, the Peerage Act 1963 received Royal Assent.

The Act famously enabled Tony Benn to disclaim his peerage and return to the House of Commons.

But for two Tory peers its effects were even more profound.

A thread. 🧵 By mid-1963 there was major grumbling in the Conservative Party regarding the leadership of Harold Macmillan.

He had been Prime Minister for almost six a half years. His policy of entering Europe was in tatters and his government was rocked by scandals like the Profumo affair.

"Budget Day. I stayed in bed most of the morning..."

That's how Harold Macmillan began his diary entry for 17 April 1956, the only time he gave a Budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

He went on... 🧵 "The nervous strain of these speeches seems to get worse as one gets older. Anyway, I have never attempted anything of the kind before... At 3.27 I went and stood behind the Speaker's Chair. At 3.30 exactly I entered the Chamber. The Conservatives gave me a very good cheer...

Harold Macmillan was a clubbable man.

In fact, he loved London clubs.

But there is a lot of confusion over which clubs he was a member of - and when.

A thread. 🧵 Going back to before Macmillan was a household name, I recently looked in the 1949 Who’s Who to see which clubs Macmillan listed.

They were: Carlton, Turf, Pratt's and Beefsteak.

So far, so simple… (Although four clubs is a lot for anybody!)

It was the shortest election campaign since the war.

And the first since we joined the European Community.

It's the February 1974 General Election, which took place #OnThisDay 49 years ago.

A thread, which I’ll be updating throughout the day with election highlights. 🧵 Before the votes are counted, the key question is how well the Liberals have done.

The campaign very much went their way and Robert McKenzie wonders whether they are on the brink of achieving 25% and making substantial gains.

His swing-o-meter begins rather more modestly.

“I hope you will recommend me for a Viscountcy… within the next few days.”

So wrote Government Minister (and apparent gown enthusiast) Frederick Erroll to the Prime Minister in Dec 1963.

It's one of the most brazen resignation letters in UK political history.

A thread. 🧵 Frederick "Freddy" Erroll was MP for Altrincham & Sale.

By the time Lord Home became PM in 1963, he had been an MP for 18.5 years, including nine in govt and two in Cabinet.

But he'd had anough, telling Douglas-Home: “At 49, I have reached the end of the political road.”

Today would have been Harold Macmillan's 129th birthday.

Here are ten landmark moments in the life of SuperMac, one of the 20th century's greatest Prime Ministers.

🧵A thread 1️⃣ Not unusually, Macmillan went to Eton - where he contracted pneumonia, developed a heart complaint and didn't complete his education due to ill health.

It has been suggested he left Eton for "usual reasons" (i.e. homosexual conduct). There is no clear evidence of this.

Clement Attlee was once asked "Is Aneurin Bevan the greatest left-winger you've known?"

He replied: “Good, gracious no. Far from it!"

You won’t believe who he said was – and how close Attlee thought they came to becoming Labour Prime Minister.

A thread.🧵 The question was put to Attlee by Tory MP David Llewellyn during a train journey from Cardiff to Paddington in 1951.

Pushed to give an answer, Attlee said: “By far the most radical man I've known in politics wasn't on the Labour side at all.”

It was Harold Macmillan.