FORMER Prime Minister Harold Macmillan seems an old-fashioned character from this distance.
He was as sniffy about Socialists as you would expect from an Eton and Oxford man who enjoyed a good day's shooting and needed to spend time making deals in the family publishing business.
But this was the Conservative who led the charge to build 300,000 houses a year in the early 1950s.
In 1956, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he launched Premium Bonds.
Peter Catterall, who lectures in history and public policy at Queen Mary, University of London, has edited the comprehensive diaries which Macmillan kept faithfully during the times he was in positions of power.
These extracts give an interesting flavour of a man who made a difference in public life.
The Macmillan Diaries. The Cabinet Years 1950-1957, edited by Peter Catterall (Pan, £9.99)
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