Cleared on all counts

Since the main purpose on earth of the Conservative party was, and still should be, to keep Britain’s ancient and well-proven social and political hierarchy in power — give or take a few necessary upward mobility adjustments — Harold Macmillan must rank very high in the scale of successful Conservative prime ministers; just below Benjamin Disraeli, whose skill in sugaring the pill of inequality and humanising the face of privilege is never likely to be bettered. Earlier biographies of Macmillan, blinded by the egalitarian zeitgeist, have never done justice to this particular dimension of his genius, preferring to see his successful manoeuvring to pass the torch on to a 14th earl as an anachronistic blunder rather than a masterstroke.

To his credit, D. R. Thorpe tells the story in its true blue colours. As he conclusively demonstrates, by the end of Macmillan’s period of grandee government, incredibly enough, all ranks of the Tory party — plebs as well as toffs — wanted a 14th earl as their next Conservative leader.