Иэйн Маклеод: Британ саяхатшысының өмірі мен қызметі

British politician

Iain Norman Macleod (11 November 1913 – 20 July 1970) was a British Conservative Party politician and government minister. A playboy and professional bridge player in his twenties, after war service Macleod worked for the Conservative Research Department before entering Parliament in 1950. He was noted as a formidable Parliamentary debater and—later—as a platform orator. He was quickly appointed Minister of Health, later serving as Minister of Labour. He served an important term as Secretary of State for the Colonies under Harold Macmillan in the early 1960s, overseeing the independence of many African countries from British rule but earning the enmity of Conservative right wingers, and the soubriquet that he was "too clever by half". Macleod was unhappy with the "emergence" of Sir Alec Douglas Home as party leader and Prime Minister in succession to Macmillan in 1963 (he claimed to have supported Macmillan's deputy Rab Butler, although it is unclear exactly what his recommendation had been). He refused to serve in Home's government, and while serving as editor of The Spectator alleged that the succession had been stitched up by Macmillan and a "magic circle" of Old Etonians. Macleod did not contest the first ever Conservative Party leadership election in 1965, but endorsed the eventual winner Edward Heath. When the Conservatives returned to power in June 1970, he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in Heath's government, but died suddenly only a month later.

Iain Macleod was born at Clifford House, Skipton, Yorkshire, on 11 November 1913. His father, Dr. Norman Alexander Macleod, was a well respected general practitioner in Skipton, with a substantial poor law practice (providing medical services for those who could not afford to pay); the young Macleod would often accompany his father on his rounds. His parents were from the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland, his father a descendant of tenant farmers on Pabbay and Uig, tracing back to the early 1500s. They moved to Skipton in 1907. Macleod grew up with strong personal and cultural ties to Scotland, as his parents bought in 1917 part of the Leverhulme estate on the Isle of Lewis, where they often used to stay for family holidays.

In October 1951 Churchill again became Prime Minister. Macleod was not offered office but instead became Chairman of the backbench Health and Social Services Committee. Macleod became a member of White's Club in 1953, and shocked members by sitting up all night to play cards. His friend Enoch Powell was jealous at Macleod's rapid promotion, but offered Macleod the use of a room at his flat when Eve Macleod was seriously ill with polio. Macleod consolidated rather than reformed the NHS, administered it well and defended it against Treasury attacks on its budget.

Macleod was not directly involved in the collusion with France and Israel over the Suez Crisis, but although he was unhappy at the turn of events, he did not resign. Macleod's duties required him to discuss the Suez Crisis with union leaders. In August 1956, he spoke to Vincent Tewson, General Secretary of the TUC, and found him "very "weak kneed"" and "ill informed". On 20 August, Macleod and Eden met Tewson, Beard of the Engineers' Union and Geddes of the Postmen's Union, and agreed that the upcoming TUC Conference would back an equivocal resolution by Geddes. On 25 August, the day after Monckton's "outburst" expressing doubts at the Egypt Committee, Cabinet Secretary Norman Brook sent a note to Eden listing Macleod as among those Cabinet members (the others being Butler, Monckton, Derrick Heathcoat Amory, the Earls of Selkirk and Kilmuir, as well as Heath who, as Chief Whip, attended Cabinet but was not technically a full member) who would want to postpone military action until all other options had been exhausted or until Nasser provided them with a better pretext, whichever came first. There were three unknowns and ten hawks—a narrow Cabinet majority in favour of military action. On 11 September, at Cabinet, Eden tasked Macleod with finding out if there would be trouble from the unions in the event of military operations in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, Norman Brook advised Macleod to "hold his hand for the moment, as this was not the appropriate time". It is unclear if this initiative came from Brook or was in response to an inquiry from Macleod himself.

Macleod missed the thinly attended Cabinet on 18 October, but afterwards was sent Eden's minute that he'd told the French that every effort must be made to stop Israel attacking Jordan, whilst Eden had told Israel that Britain would not come to Egypt's aid. It is not known whether Macleod knew of the secret Protocol of Sèvres. On 23 October, Eden told the Cabinet that there had been secret talks with Israel in Paris. On 25 October, Eden told the Cabinet that Israel would attack Egypt after all, but did not tell them about the secret Sèvres Protocol. Cabinet minutes record that Macleod was doubtful about the use of force (as were Monckton and Heathcoat Amory) because of the lack of clear UN authority and the risk of antagonising the USA. However, they did not formally dissent from the Cabinet decision to invade if Israel attacked Egypt (the Cabinet were deceived about the extent to which such an attack had already been secretly agreed – "collusion" – by Eden and Selwyn Lloyd). On 2 November, the Cabinet agreed that even in the event of a ceasefire between Egypt and Israel, Anglo French forces should still seize the Canal in a policing role until UN forces were able to take up the baton (Macleod and Heathcoat Amory were doubtful). By the weekend of 3–4 November, fighting between Israel and Egypt had largely ceased. At Cabinet on Sunday 4 November, the Cabinet decided to go ahead with the landings (but hand over to peacekeeping duties to the UN at some future date, an option which Macleod (and Heathcoat Amory) argued was hardly compatible with use of force). The other options had been to postpone by 24 hours in the hope that Israel and Egypt might accept an Anglo French occupation (a view supported by Butler, Kilmuir, Heathcote Amory and an "unnamed minister", presumed to be Macleod), or postpone indefinitely on the grounds that Israeli Egyptian hostilities had already ceased (the view of Salisbury, Monckton and Buchan Hepburn). Only Monckton had his dissent recorded, the others agreeing to accept the decision of the majority. William Rees Mogg, then a Conservative candidate in the North East, made a speech urging that Macleod be party leader. David Astor of The Observer, who on 4 November had attacked Eden for "crookedness" in an editorial, wrote to Macleod on 14 November, urging him as a younger minister to seize the party leadership so that collusion could be pinned on Eden and Lloyd, after Edward Boyle had told him that he was not interested and that Monckton was not up to it. Macleod did not reply but showed the letter to Freddie Bishop, head of the Prime Minister's Private Office, and Cabinet Secretary Norman Brook for their comments; Eden, who was on the verge of a breakdown, did not regard the matter as important. On 20 November 1956 the question of collusion was raised in Cabinet, with Eden and Lloyd (who was in New York at a United Nations meeting) both absent; Shepherd believes that it was probably Macleod who raised it. The Cabinet agreed to stick to Lloyd's formula that Britain had not incited the Israeli attack on Egypt.

When Eden stepped down as Prime Minister in January 1957, Lord Kilmuir, formally witnessed by Lord Salisbury, took a straw poll of the Cabinet to determine his successor; despite his closeness to Butler, Macleod, along with the overwhelming majority of his colleagues, backed Harold Macmillan, regarding him as a stronger leader. Macleod had intended at first to be a reforming Minister of Labour – he attempted, in the teeth of resistance from the TUC, to negotiate a Workers' Charter (a throwback to the Industrial Charter of the late 1940s) in return for a Contract of Service. He also hoped to take a tougher line with strikes than his predecessor Walter Monckton, whose explicit remit had been to appease the unions. The unions were beginning to become more militant, under the leadership of Frank Cousins, boss of the TGWU. Macleod initially accepted his own chief Industrial Commissioner's Investigation into the busmens' case. Macmillan, backed by the Cabinet, insisted on settling a separate railwaymen's strike, despite an arbitration award against them, as it was felt that they had more public sympathy than the busmen. On the bus issue, Macleod was overruled and forced to pick a fight with Frank Cousins on the pretext that they accept an independent arbitration award. Macmillan had picked a fight shrewdly, as the busmen had no allies amongst the other unions. Ernest Bevin or Arthur Deakin would not have allowed such a strike, but Cousins felt compelled to support it, and Opposition leader Hugh Gaitskell criticised the government in a speech at Glasgow. Macleod had recently demanded more debates on industrial relations but in his Commons speech of 8 May now criticised the opposition for demanding one. Macleod had acquired a national reputation as a tough figure. The conference resulted in the first Ugandan Constitution, which took effect on 9 October 1962. In Nyasaland (later Malawi), he pushed for the release of Hastings Banda, contrary to the advice of the Governor and of other politicians. He had to threaten resignation in the Cabinet to get his own way, but won Macmillan round and Banda was released in April 1960 and almost immediately invited to London for talks aimed at bringing about independence. Elections were held in August 1961, and by 1962, the British and the Central African Federation cabinets had agreed that Nyasaland should be allowed to secede from the CAF; Banda was formally recognised as Prime Minister on 1 February 1963. Historian Wm. Roger Louis wrote that "Macleod was to Africa as Mountbatten had been to India". Vernon Bogdanor has called him the greatest of Britain's colonial secretaries apart from Joseph Chamberlain.

Macleod returned to the shadow cabinet under Home following the 1964 election. His remit of opposing steel nationalisation came to naught as given his tiny majority Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson did not proceed with this measure. The coinage of the word "stagflation" is attributed to him. Speaking in the House of Commons on 17 November 1965, he said: "We now have the worst of both worlds — not just inflation on the one side or stagnation on the other, but both of them together. We have a sort of 'stagflation' situation. And history, in modern terms, is indeed being made." Macleod opposed the death penalty and supported legalisation of abortion and homosexuality; this did not help his acceptance by the more right wing elements of his own party at the time. Macleod established good personal relations with several of his Labour opposite numbers, including both Bevan and James Callaghan, even though he clashed with Callaghan numerous times at the despatch box while serving as Shadow Chancellor in the 1960s (by contrast, he did not get on with Callaghan's successor as Chancellor, Roy Jenkins, considering him vain and arrogant). As Shadow Chancellor he concentrated on tax reform. Jenkins later recorded that Macleod was not "an amiable "shadow" no doubt he was in pain Perhaps he also had a premonition that time was running out for him." In 1968 Macleod defied a decision of the Shadow Cabinet by voting against the Labour Government's Commonwealth Immigration Bill, believing it to be a breach of promises made by the Conservative Government to the Kenyan Asians. Powell's speech generated huge public support and Macleod was horrified at the open racism of many of the members of the public who wrote to him on the topic, likening them to the disgusting creatures which are revealed when one overturns a stone. During this period Macleod was noted for his attacks on Wilson. He used to refer to Wilson as "the little man" even though Wilson was actually slightly taller than him. Some of Wilson's entourage used to refer to Macleod as "the poison dwarf" but Wilson had, in the words of Macleod's biographer, a "wary respect" for him. In the late 1960s he attacked Wilson in a public speech for accusing the Conservatives of being unpatriotic. He called Wilson "a man whose vision is limited to tomorrow's headline" and, in an oft quoted line, that whereas President Kennedy had called himself "an idealist without illusions" Wilson was "an illusionist without ideals". On 14 May 1970, in the House of Commons just before the General Election, when Wilson claimed that Conservative transport policies might result in an increase in children's road deaths (Labour had recently introduced the breathalyzer), he attacked him for trying to make political capital from such a topic, and was rebuked by the Speaker for shouting abuse (the exact words are not recorded in Hansard; according to another MP he shouted "swine!") at Wilson across the despatch box.

On 20 June 1970, two days after the Conservative Party's unexpected election victory, Macleod was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer by the new Prime Minister, Heath. Despite being in pain, he made his one and only major speech on the economy as chancellor on 7 July 1970. He was discharged 11 days later. At 10.30 pm on 20 July, while in 11 Downing Street, he suffered a heart attack and died at 11.35 pm. His death was a blow to the Heath government. Robert Carr described him as "our trumpeter any government needs a great trumpeter."

Many Conservative politicians of generations following Macleod recalled him as a highly effective speaker. His bald head and piercing gaze gave him a striking physical presence, and he was one of the most powerful platform speakers of his generation, in the league of Churchill or Aneurin Bevan. He was also a superb negotiator with a grasp of detail. His political opponent Roy Jenkins later wrote that Macleod seemed to prefer to focus his attacks on more moderate Labour figures who might dispute the ownership of the centre ground with him. He wrote that Macleod had "some quality of self destructiveness in him". Jenkins wrote that Macleod had "a darting crossword puzzle mind fortified by a phenomenal memory" adding that "I am not convinced that he was a particularly nice man, but he had insight and insolence". Jenkins likens him to Benjamin Disraeli or to George Canning, who by attracting the admiration of a clique of younger men left a legend out of all proportion to their actual achievements. He commented about Labour parliamentarians under Hugh Gaitskell (opposition leader 1955–63) that, when offered their choice of weapons, they invariably chose boomerangs. It is said that Macleod was the only Conservative debater whom Harold Wilson, Gaitskell's successor as Labour leader, was afraid of. Wilson declared "they'll never have the sense to choose him [as leader]." He almost always called himself a "Tory" rather than a "Conservative". He believed in equality of opportunity rather than of outcome, and wrote that his ideal was "to see that men had an equal chance to make themselves unequal".

Macleod met Evelyn Hester Mason, née Blois, (1915–1999) in September 1939 whilst he was waiting to be called up for army service and she interviewed him for a job as an ambulance driver. Evelyn was daughter of Rev. Gervase Vanneck Blois, rector of Hanbury, Worcestershire himself son of Sir John Blois, 8th Baronet and his wife Hester, whose father was Herbert Pakington, 3rd Baron Hampton. Alan Watkins, in Brief Lives (1982) observed in his portrait of Macleod that he "was always quite proud of his wife's comparatively exalted social connection" After her first husband was killed in the war, they married on 25 January 1941. The Macleods had a son and a daughter, Torquil and Diana, who were born in 1942 and 1944 respectively. Evelyn Macleod was struck down in June 1952 with meningitis and polio, but subsequently managed to walk again with the aid of sticks and worked hard to support her husband's career. After her husband's death she accepted a peerage in 1971 and took her seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Macleod of Borve. Macleod's daughter Diana Heimann was a UK Independence Party candidate at Banbury in the 2005 general election. Macleod is buried in the churchyard of Gargrave Church in North Yorkshire, near his mother who had died seven weeks earlier. His estate was valued for probate at £18,201 (around £250,000 at 2016 prices).