Harold Macmillan

Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1957 to 1963. Nicknamed "Supermac", he was known for his pragmatism, wit, and unflappability.

Educated at Eton and Oxford, Macmillan was seriously injured as a captain of the Grenadier Guards during the First World War and suffered pain and partial immobility for the rest of his life. After the war he joined his family's book-publishing business, then entered the Commons at the 1924 general election representing Stockton-on-Tees. Losing his seat in 1929, he regained it in 1931 as a supporter of economic planning. He opposed the appeasement of Nazi Germany practised by the government and entered the Cabinet soon after the Second World War broke out as a protégé of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

In the 1950s Macmillan served as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer under Anthony Eden. When Eden resigned in 1957 following the Suez Crisis, Macmillan succeeded him as prime minister and Leader of the Conservative Party. He was a One Nation Tory of the Disraelian tradition and supported the post-war consensus of the welfare state and the mixed economy, with some nationalised industries and strong trade unions. He championed a Keynesian strategy of deficit spending to maintain demand and pursued corporatist policies to develop the domestic market as the engine of growth. Benefiting from favourable international conditions, he presided over an age of affluence, marked by low unemployment and high—if uneven—growth, as well as modest social reforms. In July 1957, Macmillan told the nation it had "never had it so good", but warned of the dangers of inflation, summing up the fragile prosperity of the 1950s. He led the Conservatives to success in 1959 with an increased majority.