"E27002" wrote in message
...
On Sep 25, 1:16 am, "michael adams" wrote:
"E27002" wrote in message

...

IMHO Macmillan is NOT a hero.

quote

Macmillan served with distinction as a captain in the Grenadier Guards
during the war, [WW1] and was wounded on three occasions. During the
Battle of the Somme, he spent an entire day wounded and lying in a slit
trench with a bullet in his pelvis, reading the classical Greek
playwright Aeschylus in his original language.[13

Publishing]
On his return to London in 1920 he joined the family firm Macmillan
Publishers as a junior partner, remaining with the company until his
appointment to ministerial office in 1940.

{Macmillan was responsible for publishing and championing the work of
the Irish playwright Sean O'Casey)

Housing Minister (1951-1954)
With the Conservative victory in 1951 Macmillan became Minister of Housing
under Churchill, who entrusted Macmillan with fulfilling the latter's conference
promise to build 300,000 houses per year. 'It is a gamble-it will make or mar
your political career,' Churchill said, 'but every humble home will bless your
name if you succeed.'[32] Macmillan achieved the target a year ahead of schedule.[33]

/quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Macmillan

Thank you. Clearly he was a hero. Unfortunately the latter day of
his government were marred by scandal. Two elections later Wilson was
firmly in control and the UK's decline went into overdrive.

That was hardly MacMillan's fault. The only real scandal I can recall was
that of Profumo an honourable man brought down by an eye for a nice piece
of spare crumpet. It was only George kerb-crawler Wigg sniffing around
and bringing up the Ivanov connection of which Profumo had no knowledge
which cause Profumo to lie to his colleagues and the House.

Macmillan had stepped into the breach on the sudden fall of Eden, another
honourable man brought down by one moment of madness - Suez in his case
when the country needed a leader with gravitas. If anything caused the fall
of Macmillan as much as anything it was his being an easy target for mimicry
starting with Peter Cook. More especially the humilation he suffered at
the hands of the arsehole Cook who directly insulted him from the satge
of "Beyond the Fringe".
You may as well blame Peter Cook and the TWTWTW crowd for the defeat of
the Tories as anyone. While second time round it was Alec Douglas Home
in any case. Again an honourable man but totally unelectable up against Wilson
certainly as compared with other candidates such as Butler, Macleod etc.
But all of whom had made enemies within the Tory party.

So it was all your own fault.



michael adams

....