Part 2 of 'Prime Minister in hospital; chaos at Party Conference; and the leader 'emerges' for the final time.'
Part 2 of 2 on the 1963 Conservative leadership selection.
In part 1, Harold Macmillan announced that he would be resigning and a frenetic Conservative Party Conference took on the atmosphere of an American nominating convention, with wannabe premiers vying for the Crown. We pick up the story with ministers and journalists back in London and the consultations over who should be the next prime minister about to begin.
Whilst the majority of his colleagues were away at Party Conference in Blackpool, Macmillan, still confined to a hospital bed, drafted his proposals for the consultation over his successor. He suggested that the Cabinet be consulted by Dilhorne; Conservative MPs by Redmayne; active Conservative peers by Lord St Aldwyn, the Chief Whip in the Lords; and the wider party grassroots by Lord Poole, the co-party chairman. (Macleod, his fellow party chairman and an outside candidate for the highest office, was excluded.) The proposals were brilliantly devised to maximise Macmillan’s influence over the process. Whereas in 1957 the Cabinet was asked in turn to choose between Butler and Macmillan, with the clear result reported to the Queen, Macmillan ensured that the 1963 consultation was sufficiently broad to make any clear, definitive outcome a near impossibility. Whilst seemingly more democratic, it enhanced Macmillan’s power as interpreter of the party’s will. Should the Queen ask for Macmillan’s advice on his successor - and it had been made clear by the Palace that she would - the content of that advice would be left to his discretion. In an astounding act of passivity, the Cabinet agreed to Macmillan’s plan.
With agreement over the process, events began to move quickly. Over two days consultees were typically asked three questions: (1) who should succeed Macmillan? (2) who should be the second choice? And (3) who among the contenders would you least like to see as leader?
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