The 'Emergence' of Lord Home

...Although Hailsham is the darling of the party rank and file, the passionate oratory that makes him a hero at the annual party conference suggests a vein of emotionalism and instability which evidently appalled his ministerial colleagues...

...In an election, the candidate with the most votes wins and that is the end of the matter...

...It is equally unsurprising that Home should have been preferred to Maudling or Hailsham...

...If any one man deserves credit for the fact that a Conservative government is in power today, Butler is the man...

...His definition is still valid...

...By Conservative standards Macmillan was fairly liberal, and in the '30s extremely so...

...To the solid, unimaginative, but deeply emotional instinctive Tories in his party, he is oddly enigmatic and therefore a disturbing figure: undeniably clever, probably very useful in his way, but somehow alien BUT WHOM does Butler alienate...

...Butler does not do this—or if he does, he does not seem to...

...DECISION BY BLACKBALL The 'Emergence' of Lord Home By David Marquand London The real significance of Lord Home's appointment as Prime Minister lies in the 10 days of political skullduggery which preceded his arrival in Downing Street, not in the policies which his government is likely to pursue...

...Above all, it means that in a crisis, the instinctive Tory core of the Conservative party pulls more weight than its progressive fringe...

...The Labor opposition clearly thinks it does, but it may be allowing the wish to be father to the thought...

...Yet he has now been passed over—and for the second time...

...This is the crucial question, and it is in its answer that the significance of Home's victory is to be found...

...Indeed, with Edward Heath as Secretary for Trade and Regional Planning, there is a faint chance that it might be a shade more liberal, at least in domestic affairs...

...As the London Times put it, the outcome was decided by blackball...

...The two questions are very different, and on this occasion the second one proved decisive...

...Personally, I think it improbable that the electorate cares much one way or the other about the internal power structure of either party...

...Toryism is a mood, not a political philosophy...

...It is too soon to assess the direct parliamentary or electoral impact of their refusal...

...Thus Home "emerged" largely because he seemed likely to do the least harm to the unity of his party...

...It means that although the mind of the Conservative party has been converted to the postwar Butlerian doctrines, its emotions have not...

...And Butler, in spite of his immense services to the Conservative party, has never quite carried conviction as a Tory...

...Home had the fewest passionate supporters, but also the fewest unrelenting enemies...

...But whether or not the electorate cares is really beside the point...

...It is hardly an inspiring reason, but it is not a particularly surprising one either...

...My attempt to describe the emotional basis of Toryism could have been made in almost exactly the same words at any time in the last century...

...He cared about the Crown, the Church and the country in the way that Tories care...

...Anyone interested in the government of Great Britain and anxious that it should come to terms psychologically with the realities of the 20th century should care a great deal...

...What is mysterious to an outsider is that Home should have been preferred to Butler...

...The really important feature of the Tory succession crisis is just that...

...He was patriotic in the way Tories are patriotic...

...When Macmillan announced his decision to resign the Premiership, there were four effective contenders for the succession: R. A. Butler, the Deputy Prime Minister in Macmillan's government, Lord Hailsham, the Minister for Science, Reginald Maudling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary...

...It is a hallowed tradition in the Conservative party that the leader should "emerge" from a process of informal consultation, instead of being elected in the vulgar and ungentlemanly way that the Laborites prefer...

...and Macmillan responded to it...

...He aroused no enthusiasm in the rank and file outside Parliament, however, and seems to have had little support in the Cabinet...

...Maudling is about the least charismatic figure in the top reaches of British politics, and totally lacks the air of authority one expects in a Prime Minister...

...Although a sceptic and even a cynic, on the surface he manifestly worshipped the Tory gods and felt the Tory emotions...

...The reasons are deeply rooted in the psychology of the Conservative party...

...Whether this matters electorally, no one can tell...

...One hundred and twenty years ago, Benjamin Disraeli defined conservatism as a combination of "Tory men and Whig measure...

...David Marquand, a regular contributor, is now completing a politicalbiography of Ramsay MacDonald...

...Indeed, it is Butler's defeat which needs explaining, not Home's victory...

...It means that the changes which have taken place in the public face of the Conservative party have gone far less deep than one had supposed...

...This, of course, is why two of the ablest of Macmillan's younger ministers—Macleod and Enoch Powell—have refused to serve in Home's Cabinet...

...It was Butler who persuaded the Conservatives to come to terms with the postwar world...

...Among the Conservatives, the party managers who control the process of consultation try to assess not only which candidate is the most popular, but which is the least unpopular...

...But it is highly unlikely that Home will do any such thing...

...I doubt very much that the new government will follow a significantly different policy from its predecessors...

...The average member of the Conservative rank and file has usually been prepared to accept comparatively liberal policies—provided they are presented by Tory men...

...Butler, supported by the ablest members of Macmillan's Cabinet, was viewed with implacable hostility by a crucial minority of the party hierarchy...

...This never prevented the instinctive Tories in his party from accepting him as one of themselves...

...Maudling had some support from the younger and more liberal Conservative backbenchers who thought he could give his party the "New Frontier" facelift it so desperately needs if it is to win the next election...

...If Home's government should take a sharp turn to the Right, they might become a focus for opposition in the Conservative parliamentary party...

...This is not only because Butler's political attitudes are too liberal for the right-wing of the Conservative party to stomach...

...It was Butler who trained the new generation of Conservative leaders—the Maudlings and the Ian Macleods—who now constitute their party's main electoral asset...

...The significance of Home's election—and this is the real reason why Macleod and Powell have refused to serve under him—is the light it throws on the power structure of the Conservative party...

...As for Hailsham, the very qualities which endear him to the party faithful make him an alarming and suspect figure to the uncommitted voter...

...What he has never been willing to accept is liberal policies presented by men whose Toryism is in doubt...

...For although he is a modest and unambitious man, there is no reason to believe that he wishes to commit electoral suicide...

...For Butler was the chief architect of the "New Look" Conservatism which enabled the Tory party to recover so quickly from the disaster of 1945, and which has kept it in power since 1951...

...The Conservative system gives far more weight to negative pressures than a straightforward election would...

...Many party leaders, in Britain and the U.S., have come to the purple for substantially that reason...

...Sometimes he has even been willing to accept comparatively liberal men— provided they make the right Tory noises...