Sir Alec Douglas-Home

Abstract

From his sick-bed, Macmillan was determined to play an active part in the selection of his successor. His initial choice appears to have been Hailsham, which was surprising in view of the manner in which he had treated him after the election of 1959, giving him the new and somewhat nebulous post of Minister of Science instead of the major Department to which his seniority, as well as his important contribution to the electoral victory, seemed to entitle him. Macmillan may have judged that Hailsham’s lively and flamboyant style would have given the party the tonic needed for it to win a fourth successive General Election. If this was indeed Macmillan’s reasoning, it would strike most political observers as eccentric, to say the least. According to Randolph Churchill, Macmillan explained his views to Hailsham at a meeting in Downing Street on 30 September.’ Some such explicit assurance from the Prime Minister renders Hailsham’s subsequent conduct accountable.