Bending to the Wind

When an equivocal and shapeless pudding was once put in front of him at the Savoy, Winston Churchill told the waiter: “Pray take away this pudding. It has no theme.” Harold Macmillan recalls this incident, in the prologue to his memoirs, as a warning to authors as well as to cooks, and he expatiates on what he considers to be the main themes of the book. But the real theme, which must intrigue any student of contemporary political history, is Macmillan himself.

Perhaps not since Disraeli has Britain had so complex and ambiguous a Prime Minister. His rival, Rab Butler, was notorious for studied ambiguity, but Butler’s ambiguities were crude compared with the subtlety of Macmillan’s position. Butler’s undoing, after all, was that, when the crunch came, he failed to sell himself to the Tory Party: Macmillan succeeded overwhelmingly.

AL

About the Author

Anthony Lejeune

Featured Tags

Manage following

Britain

Winston Churchill

British Conservative Party

World War I

World War II

Adolf Hitler

When an equivocal and shapeless pudding was once put in front of him at the Savoy, Winston Churchill told the waiter: “Pray take away this pudding. It has no theme.” Harold Macmillan recalls this incident, in the prologue to his memoirs, as a warning to authors as well as to cooks, and he expatiates on what he considers to be the main themes of the book. But the real theme, which must intrigue any student of contemporary political history, is Macmillan himself.

Perhaps not since Disraeli has Britain had so complex and ambiguous a Prime Minister. His rival, Rab Butler, was notorious for studied ambiguity, but Butler’s ambiguities were crude compared with the subtlety of Macmillan’s position. Butler’s undoing, after all, was that, when the crunch came, he failed to sell himself to the Tory Party: Macmillan succeeded overwhelmingly.