The Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends and the World they Made

The lead Cooper established over his contemporaries that night lasted for the rest of the decade. In 1929 William Bridgeman, a senior member of Baldwin’s Cabinet who had been much concerned with party management, noted that after Cooper ‘there did not seem to me anyone so markedly brilliant as to deserve immediate promotion from the back benches’.96 Although Crookshank subsequently pursued his interest in eastern affairs, having missed his opportunity in December, it was to little effect. His first parliamentary question two months later on the subject of the ecumenical patriarch was hardly likely to set the heather on fire. His maiden speech was given not in the early evening of a great debate, as was Cooper’s, but late at night to a thin house. It was not a succès d’estime. It did cover foreign policy, but was chiefly noted for the dictum that, ‘The conduct of foreign affairs must be in the hands of the few,’ which, stated in such an unvarnished fashion, led to unflattering comparisons with Jim Salisbury.97 Crookshank, who had come into politics knowledgeable about and fascinated by imperial affairs, was never able to take an opportunity to become involved in them.

Crookshank was nevertheless an able and quick-witted parliamentary speaker, in contrast to Macmillan, who tended to the ponderous. But this only seemed to gain him a reputation for idiosyncrasy, one of the last attributes desirable in a ministerial careerist. He was not helped by two aspects of his physical appearance. One he could not help. Early hair loss revealed a large cranium. He looked like nothing other than the spitting image of William Shakespeare. No newspaper seemed able to mention his name without alluding to this resemblance. His dress, on the other hand, was entirely his own choice. Until the outbreak of the Second World War he insisted on wearing a shiny topper to the House. He looked like a shorter version of Sir Austen Chamberlain – which was probably worse than looking like the Bard. No newspaper seemed able to mention his name without alluding to this resemblance either. Physically equipped for quirkiness, he started to make his name as a backbencher rather than as a potential minister. When another well-known House of Commons character, Commander Kenworthy, drew up his list of new MPs to watch, he noted that ‘the outstanding figure amongst the younger members is Mr Duff Cooper’. Crookshank was notable as one ‘who has realized that one of the first essentials of success in Parliament is to be always in his place’.

Instead of Asiatic affairs, Crookshank was increasingly drawn to quixotic affairs. His first great parliamentary set piece came in 1926 when he tried to wreck a government bill obviating the need for MPs to seek re-election when they became ministers. He managed to insult a number of groups: the party’s business managers, liberal Conservatives, Liberals who had become Conservatives. Labelling himself an ‘ultra-conservative’, he mocked, ‘Debates…extraordinarily busy with the question of safeguarding industries,’ and suggested that the Commons should instead ‘follow out the principle of safeguarding the present rights of the electorate’. He also had a dig at turncoats. In a considerable coup for the whips, two former Liberal Cabinet ministers had just defected to the Conservatives. Crookshank expressed the view that if such men, ‘in crossing the floor, were quite sure of office, then I think it is important and absolutely essential that the present safeguard should be maintained’. Not only was Crookshank intemperate, he also got his parliamentary procedure wrong. His amendment to the bill inadvertently implied that a Cabinet minister moving to another post in the Cabinet would have to seek re-election to the House of Commons. ‘It is the first time I have tried my hand at this kind of thing, and I am not a lawyer,’ was Crookshank’s somewhat lame excuse. His friend Charles Waterhouse, another of the 1924 intake, had to come to his aid, amending the amendment to make it coherent. To no one’s surprise this stand for parliamentary precedence over the convenience of the government was defeated by a large margin. Crookshank was also associated with another parliamentary revolt against Baldwin over the Prayer Book. Given his own Irish background and the fact that his Gainsborough seat contained the highest proportion of non-conformists in England,98 Crookshank had little choice but to line up behind the home secretary, ‘Jix’ Joynson-Hicks, who believed the Church of England’s proposed new liturgy was papism by the back door. In this case he was part of the majority, but he had been dragged, this time reluctantly, into another quixotic fight.99

Macmillan’s strategy for success was quite different from that of Crookshank. In part it derived from the constituency he represented. Stockton was one of the seats won by Baldwin’s abandonment of ‘dear food’. Yet a change of national policy was certainly not enough to secure the seat for any length of time. The MPs for the newly won northern seats had to be seen actively lobbying for the interests of their constituents if they were to stand a chance of keeping their places. So although Macmillan was more interested in foreign than domestic affairs, he could not afford the luxury of following his natural inclination. Support for industrial protection and urban relief was almost inevitable. Yet the manner in which Macmillan chose to prosecute his agenda revealed a sophisticated grasp of tactics. Crookshank’s stance as an independent member was positively Victorian, Macmillan’s was exceptionally modern.

The experience of the previous decade had changed the House of Commons. Of the ten years between 1914 and 1924, seven, 1915 to 1922, saw coalition government. The two years following the fall of Lloyd George had demonstrated a high degree of political instability. Although the Conservatives secured a massive majority in 1924, the clock could not simply be put back to 1900. The lessons learnt by ambitious backbenchers submerged within an overwhelming parliamentary majority were just as applicable to single-party as to coalition rule. The years of coalition had produced new forms of back-bench action. As the veteran political journalist Sir Henry Lucy noted at the beginning of the coalition period: ‘not since the days of Mr Gladstone’s prime as leader of the House of Commons has there been such activity in the creation of what were known as Tea Room Cabals. Now they are called Ginger Committees, their avowed patriotic purpose being to keep the Government on the hop.’100

Some of these groups, such as the wartime Unionist Business Committee or the 1922 Committee, founded in 1923 as a form of self-help organization for new members, had over 100 members.101 Others, the ‘ginger groups’ proper, were much smaller. They tended to be bound together by some policy positions and a determination to support each other in the House. In effect they were a claque. If one member was speaking in a debate, the others would be sure to attend to give him support. They would cheer him to the echo and shout down anyone who attempted to intervene. Some of these groups were for or contained ideologues. Most, however, were means to an end. Successful parliamentary performance helped by one’s fellows, good publicity, the threat of limited acts of rebellion all helped to draw the attention of party managers to backbenchers. Soon members of the ginger group would find themselves asked to join the government as junior ministers. Careers would be launched and the claque would have served its purpose.

For an ambitious young liberal Conservative like Macmillan, the most notable group of this type was one launched in 1917, ‘to lunch together once a week and try to act together’, by a group of Tories interested in social reform.102 The political careers of its leading lights certainly prospered. By 1924 Billy Ormsby-Gore, whose successes had so piqued Macmillan’s ambition, was under-secretary at the Colonial Office, Top Wolmer, Bobbety Cranborne’s cousin, was parliamentary secretary to the Board of Trade, Walter Guinness was financial secretary to the Treasury, Eddie Winterton was under-secretary of state for India, Philip Cunliffe-Lister was president of the Board of Trade. Of most interest to Macmillan, however, was the rapid progress of Edward Wood, recently president of the Board of Education and soon to embark on the viceroyalty of India. Wood had publicized the views of the group – support for housing and agricultural subsidies, voting equality for women, regional devolution, support for the League of Nations – in The Great Opportunity, a short book co-written with George Lloyd, whose ADC Macmillan was to have been in 1919.103 Macmillan had a great advantage as a member of any ginger group: he was a publisher. He could guarantee a first-class vehicle for any publication – however trite or boring. The ability to give or withhold the right of publication often grated with those not so blessed. One of the first clashes between Macmillan and Rab Butler occurred over Macmillan’s reluctance to publish propaganda for Butler’s campaign on India.104 From his first day in the House, Macmillan was determined to be part of a ginger group.105

It was entirely logical for Macmillan to concentrate his activities on ginger groups. What surprised many is how assiduously he stuck to the idea once it had become politically counter-productive. Indeed, until he finally entered the government in 1940 he displayed a positive passion for such cabals. For most of the 1924 to 1929 Parliament, however, the political strategy that had sent him down this road seemed to hold good. Macmillan rapidly became involved with two groups. One was the northern MPs: a regional alliance that was largely one of convenience – they would all sink or swim together. The other ginger group resembled more closely Wood’s successful model. By the middle of 1925 they were already being given names like the EYM (Eager Young Men).106 Like its predecessor, it was made up of men drawn from the same political generation and at much the same point in their careers. At its core were two young aristocrats, Oliver Stanley and John Loder, two Scottish MPs, Bob Boothby and Noel Skelton, and Macmillan himself.

The aim of a ginger group was to benefit all of its members. It was inevitable, however, that some would be left behind. As the party managers selected the cream of the crop, the group would dissolve. The problem for Macmillan was that most of his new-found allies had more obvious talents than himself. John Loder had charm – he could get away with admitting that he would have joined the Liberal party if it had still been a credible political organization. Noel Skelton flung out interesting ideas with ‘reckless prodigality’. Oliver Stanley had impeccable political connections through his father, Lord Derby. He could afford to sow his political wild oats in the happy knowledge that the party leadership would view him with indulgence. Like Cooper’s, his maiden speech was heavily trailed and widely hailed. It made the right noises about political harmony. Also like Cooper, Stanley used humour well.107 Some people regarded Stanley as an empty suit. The perceptive Cuthbert Headlam had dinner with Stanley and Macmillan at the end of their first year in Parliament. Of ‘the two rising hopes of the Conservative Party’ he said, ‘The latter strikes me as much the abler of the two, but of course the former has the greater backing’.108 As a result it was Stanley who came to be regarded as a future liberal Conservative prime minister. Boothby was quite different. He was very young. Born in 1900, his war service had amounted to nothing more than training with the Scots Guards. There was something wild, even a little dangerous about Boothby. Both Macmillan and Boothby were offensive about the opposition in their maiden speeches. Whereas Cooper and Stanley had got their digs in by using humour, and had been well received, many were offended by Boothby and Macmillan. The difference was that Boothby was offensive with brio and panache. Macmillan tried to savage his opponent by reading him an essay.109

Within two years, the eager young men of 1925 had acquired a more enduring sobriquet, the YMCA. It implied that they were keen but priggish, lecturing their elders on the best way to run things. Like all young, talented and ambitious men they aroused their share of animus. Yet they always kept on the right side of the party managers, claiming as their inspiration Baldwin himself. It suited the prime minister to be seen encouraging voices of progressive Conservatism. Part of his political strategy was to reach out to all non-socialists and form a grand union of the centre and the right.110 The YMCA were a useful tool in pursuit of that goal. Macmillan was convinced that ministerial office was just round the corner.

Like his model, Edward Wood, he intended to make his mark with a short book publicizing the ginger group. His first trial balloon for the book was a letter to The Times

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