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horrors, he retaliated with ‘the best Prime Minister we have’ in January and with a classic ‘anxious to wound but afraid to strike’ performance throughout the summer and autumn of the Suez imbroglio.
    In fact Rab’s Suez ambiguity did more harm to himself thanto Eden (who needed no assistance in self-destruction at that stage), and even an affectionate admirer like myself cannot excuse his complete failure to stand up to Eden in his crucial one-to-one interview with him on 18 October, accompanied by his constant mutterings of semi-detachment. Butler’s sins in that ghastly three months when every leading member of the British Government covered himself with discredit were less than those of Macmillan whose militancy (and misjudgement of Eisenhower) on the eve of the battle was only matched by his determination to run away as soon as the bombardment (of sterling) began. Yet Macmillan kept a constituency, whereas Butler, despite the competence, even the brilliance, of his clearing up of the mess once defeat was obvious and Eden had retired hurt to the West Indies, alienated almost everybody. The meeting of the 1922 Committee on 22 November at which he and Macmillan jointly appeared had about it an almost allegorical quality that should be enshrined in a tapestry or painting in the room in which the meeting took place. Butler gave a pedestrian account of the hard work he had done in retreat from Eden’s rashness. Macmillan, who was only there because Butler unwisely thought that maybe he should be accompanied, gave one of the great virtuoso performances of his life. Every stop was pulled out. The retreat was still the reality, but it was conducted under a thunderous barrage of patriotic braggadocio.
    When Eden resigned seven weeks later Butler was still the favourite in the predictions of the press. But in the Cabinet, where the effective decision was made, and with Churchill, who was called in for consultation by the monarch, Macmillan was given the edge. Butler’s support was varyingly estimated at between one and three of his Cabinet colleagues as against the
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fifteen who plumped for Macmillan. Whether he would have done better amongst the junior ministers and Tory backbenchers is uncertain. In any event they were not asked, and Rab began six and a quarter years of being Macmillan’s factotum, a major-domo, even a chamberlain, rather than a butler, although eponymy made it inevitable that he was often cartooned as precisely that. He had an independent fame in the country and commanded considerablereserves of faintly amused affection. He never attempted to modify his style to suit Macmillan’s, or to echo his words, or to pretend to a warmth towards him that he did not feel. Butler was none the less Macmillan’s deputy, depended upon to ‘run the government’ (his old Martha-like skill) during Macmillan’s fairly long and frequent absences abroad.
    Despite this dependence, Macmillan often treated Butler with a surprising lack of consideration. He refused to give him the Foreign Office at the beginning of the government, on the some-what specious ground that Selwyn Lloyd had to be kept there because a second head on a charger (the first being Eden’s) would be too much of a repudiation of Suez. So Rab had to make do with the Home Office, where, however, he became considerably and constructively engrossed. To this was added the leadership of the House of Commons, in which post his capacity for elliptical and non-partisan ambiguity brought him great success, particularly with the Opposition. Two and a half years later, after the victorious election of 1959, Macmillan, rather like a cricket captain piling sweaters upon a patient umpire, added the chairman ship of the Conservative Party, which required too much enthusiasm and partisanship to be Rab’s natural habitat. Then, in the summer of 1960, when he moved Selwyn Lloyd to the Treasury, he again passed over