News about Harold Macmillan

June 1963 and 18-year-old model Mandy Rice-Davies is being interrogated in court about her sex life by a prosecution intent on proving she is implicated in improper behaviour. Lawyers put it to the nervous teenager that one of the men she claimed to have slept with, former MP Lord William Astor, 55, has denied any such liaison. Mandy's reply is defiant, cutting through class barriers and capturing the lies and hypocrisy of the biggest political sex scandal of the last century in five short words: 'Well, he would, wouldn't he?'

Ms Keeler, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 75, was at the heart of Britain's most infamous sex scandal after she and war minister John Profumo had an extra-marital affair when she was 19 years old. Her family has maintained that unrelated charges brought against her were trumped up to discredit her amid the sex scandal which ultimately contributed to the downfall of Harold Macmillan's Tory Government. They could now finally receive justice after investigators from the Criminal Case Review Commission passed on more than 200 pages that could prove her innocence.

In what has been a remarkable U-turn, the university announced it will abandon the move to let university officials potentially disqualify candidates who put themselves forward for election. It has also decided not to follow plans to let the vetting committee have 'due regard to the principles of equality and diversity' when deciding who should go forward, The Times reports. It comes after senior government ministers claimed Oxford's prior proposals were 'wokeism gone mad' and an attempt to install a 'modern candidate' since the chancellor role has been held by male former politicians since 1715. Conservative MP Neil O'Brien (inset) told the publication Oxford wanted to impose 'an eastern bloc-style managed democracy' where a small number of officials would decide who is allowed to step up for election.

Labour governments have always had ambitious domestic agendas. However, they would soon discover the truth of Harold Macmillan's (top left) glowing (though perhaps apocryphal) reply to the journalist who asked him what was most likely to upset a government: 'Events, dear boy, activities' Whatever grand designs Sir Keir Starmer may have for his own premiership, powers outside his influence are already planning the events that will derail them.

Was art expert Blunt on a mission to protect senior members of the Royal Family from association with the immoral earnings of goodtime girls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies was gripping the post-war public?Was he attempting to save the reputation of Prince Philip and erase any public sign of a louche, party-going lifestyle more suited to a dissolute bachelor than the prince consort of a Queen? The Palace has long denied any involvement in the events of the weekend, but rumors and mystery persist. Philip had been in touch with Ward on several occasions, and he had even been sketched by the artist at Buckingham Palace. Now, this and other drawings had quickly disappeared due to the mystery purchaser.

Labour has a lot to celebrate following its stunning by-election victories in Wellingborough and Kingswood last week. But there's more to remember. Take this sobering fact: there have been only six Labour Prime Ministers in British history. If you want, call me a party pooper, but the General Election will be very different.

Our questionnaires reveal that your results are important. They help us identify what kind of people we are. Thousands of pubs hold their own quiz nights every week. Few other occasions bring the generations of people together in the same way. And on television, they can have a huge effect. Britain had its own scandal in 2001 when contestant, the Coughing Major, was accused of cheating on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? With the help of accomplices, we were able to get home. However, perhaps the biggest controversy of the University Challenge has been turned into a festival of political correctness, with some of whose answers being more or less impossible to answer, and many more (I suspect) being answered because so many teams now prepare for them.

SPECIAL REPORT BY STEPHEN McGOWAN: Former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was once asked to name the biggest challenge for any statesman. 'Events, dear boy, events,' he replied. When events in Israel changed everything, the ink on Liel Abada's new deal at Celtic was barely dry. The winger's homeland was attacked by Hamas five weeks after he signed a new four-year contract, prompting concerns about his potential to remain a player at the Parkhead club.

ANDREW NEIL: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak revealed this week that the country's worst kept secret this week is that the general election will not take place until the fall, at the earliest. True, there had been some elicitant exuberance in Westminster's more energized denizens (especially journalists at Sky News who had too much TV time to fill), but there was nothing to celebrate in the spring surprise. However, that was always unlikely. After the pandemic was followed by some very difficult years for the economy and people's living conditions, signs of revival will be in short supply by spring, causing it to be too late for the Tories to return to the country. Sunak knows he still has a mountain to scale to prevent the Conservatives from winning an election (never mind that they should actually win an election) and that he needs all the time he can get. It's not enough to cut taxes and make a hurry for the elections. As Harold Macmillan, the prime minister from 1957-63, and even a landslide victory in 1959), told me, you must let the money 'fructify' (wonderful Supermac word) in people's pockets. In other words, voters need to know they're better off and that they may have a bit more money to invest (or save). Sunak has 'bottled it,' according to Labour's chorus, who is terrified of voters. The Prime Minister is correct to disregard this. It's just the normal flotsam and jetsam of what passes for party political discourse these days.

He was at the center of one of the biggest political scandals in history, but it was marred by an illicit affair involving a showgirl 27 years his junior that was thrown out by an illicit affair. Then War Secretary, however, was being urged to confront the Queen three years before John Profumo (right) resigned in disgrace from Harold Macmillan's government. Soldiers sent to safeguard the Queen at Balmoral (inset) were being used as grouse beaters by Royal Family members, according to newly classified War Office papers from 1960.

The late queen's Christmas of 1956 was particularly sad. Prince Philip, who spent four years playing second fiddle to his wife, moved to a four-month tour of the southern hemisphere. For the first time this year, the Queen decided that her Christmas address should be broadcast live for the first time.

Profumo (inset bottom) affair icon Christine Keeler (right and inset top in 1964)'s son has announced that his late mother will finally receive compensation 60 years after she was barred from prison for lying in court. Seymour Platt (left), 51, is hoping that his mother's appeal to the Criminal Case Review Commission within a few weeks. Ms Keeler died in 2017 at the age of 75. Since she and war minister John Profumo had an extramarital affair when she was 19 years old, she was at the center of Britain's most notorious sex scandal. Her family has maintained that unrelated charges brought against her were deliberated up to discredit her in the aftermath of Harold Macmillan's Tory Government's demise.

Suella Braverman seemed to revel in the uproar she sowed as Home Secretary, both within and outside the Conservative Party. Even by Tory measures, the daughter of immigrants had a rough go against immigration, with a warning of a 'hurricane' of global migration. But she was undone once more by going rogue, for sleeping rough as a 'lifestyle choice,' and later, the Metropolitan Police over Gaza demonstrations. Although fellow ministers made no secret of their plans to stop a pro-Palestine march in London on Armistice Day, her portrayal of them as 'hate marches' was derogated from within Tory ranks even before she challenged the police's motives. In a newspaper article, Mrs Braverman said Scotland Yard was "playing favorites" and guilty of double standards when policing demonstrations from the left and right, which were not allowed by No. 10.

After an abduction alert was sent to them the day after two men reportedly assaulted school children in a van, terrified parents are on alert. 'It has come to our knowledge' that two men driving a dark grey van attempted abduction children last night,' Sarah Segrave, the head of the prestigious prep school Eaton House Schools, sent a note to parents.' Ms Segrave urged parents to be vigilant and aware of the danger of encouraging students to make their own way home from school and clubs now that the nights are getting darker. Parents should also be vigilant and alert any suspicious situations to the police right away,' she advised. About 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, a suspected shooting occurred near the junction of Nansen Road and Forthbridge Road.

QUENTIN LETTINGS: Suella Braverman described an immigration 'hurricane,' but she herself was a tornado advancing to polite traditions, ripping valuable etiquette from its moorings. The Establishment will be applauded. (Bar one) Tory activists (except one) adored it. The Manchester conference center, which had all the charm of an aircraft carrier's loading deck, was packed. The representatives had just heard a civilised address from the youthful Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk, that had just piqued their interest. Mr Chalk, tall, tidy, with a hint of peach to his cheeks, insisted that we could solve the little-boats issue "within our overarching legal obligations."

He mother of two boys, 43, is of Indian origins. Uma and Christie Fernandes have Goan and Mauritian roots, but they immigrated to Britain in the 1960s from East Africa before establishing a base in Harrow, north-west London. Sue-Ellen's mother, a big fan of the US soap opera Dallas, was born in 1980. But she was named Suella by primary school teachers who couldn't cope with the hyphen, and it stayed. Mrs Fernandes, a registered nurse, made sure that politics was a part of family life. She served unsuccessfully for Parliament for 16 years as a Tory councillor for 16 years, as well as in 2001 and 2003. However, after a hardline address on immigration and the state of the country that resulted in a standing ovation at the Conservative Party Conference, she and her husband may now lead the party - and perhaps the world.

She accused politicians of all sorts of being too'squeamish' to take action on illegal immigration in the last 30 years in a red meat address to the party faithful. She used the example of her own parents, who had Indian origins but had arrived in the United Kingdom from east Africa, to give a grim picture of the UK's threat. She referred to former Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's address of post-colonial Africa, saying, "the wind of change that carried my own parents around the world in the twentieth century was a tiny breeze compared to the approaching hurricane."

King Charles has been granted permission to develop a new greenhouse that will increase the growing capacity of his 18th century Cotswolds estate by a third. More people will be able to visit Highgrove House to learn about horticulture as a result of the greenhouse's plans. Alongside three cold frames, it will also mean more young plants can be grown at the mansion near Tetbury in Gloucestershire

This is unquestionably a persistent issue for several developing countries. However, the tenacity of UK government borrowings has recently come into focus. The government is not likely to renege on these loans, as the government has stated. Nonetheless, the subject is expected to be more discussed ahead of the fall Budget. The amount owed by the UK to borrowings has increased to £2.58 trillion since the pandemic and the civil war in Ukraine. As a result, the country's debts remained at 98.5 percent of gross domestic product for the first time since 1961, when Harold Macmillan was prime minister.

This week, there's a lot of birthdays to go around for, with someone with long floppy ears, short waddly legs, and a tail wagging in anticipation. Not that Fred Bassett, 60, or 420 in doggy years, will cause a lot of fuss on Sunday. He's just not the sort. The rose bed could also be a subtle commemoration dig. Or, a nose in the garbage cans. Or perhaps a quick reorganisation of the daily newspaper and a nibch on a stolen string of sausages. And then, most likely, a snooze in his master's chair as he waits for all the festivities to pass.

EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: The Palace is aware that royals can enter desert kingdoms that are otherwise uninhibited to mere politicians. Charles is confident he'd have privileged access to Cop-28 president Sultan Al Jaber. On a state visit to London in 2013, he attended a private meeting. According to reports, the King's greatest worry is that PM Rishi doesn't fully understand the power of royal diplomacy and may not want him to travel to Dubai.

DOMINIC SANDBROOK Few people in Parliament these days have heard of Noel Skelton, who represented two Scottish constituencies in Parliament during the world wars. Skelton, however, should be remembered as one of the modern Conservative Party's intellectual godfathers, as he was the first to propose that Britain should be a 'property-owning democracy.' There was only one lasting way to avoid the danger of socialism, as Skelton wrote in a series of articles in 1923. To be successful, the Tories had to give ordinary people something positive, a voice in society. In other words, they had to give them bricks and mortar, implying a house of their own. Never before, election-winning Tory politicians have followed Skelton's example. Stanley Baldwin presided over the suburban sprawl, insisting that he wanted nothing better than for people "to own their own houses." Harold Macmillan, a native of the 1950s, built a record 300,000 houses per year, with a scoreboard in his office to monitor the totals.

NADINE DORRIES: When our former Prime Minister Boris Johnson informed me that I had been on his resignation honors list, I was overwhelmed, and I immediately experienced another bout of the imposter syndrome. I've always been in awe of the House of Lords. It's here where heavy lifting of properly scrutinizing legislation takes place, while the Commons, which is the chamber of the Commons, is the stage for set pieces such as Prime Minister's Questions and, of late, little else. Since Boris was fired, Parliament seems to have come to a halt. But I am used to getting imposter syndrome out of my mind, just as I am used to dealing with people who have passed away over the course of my life. I grew up on a Liverpool council estate and I knew what hunger pains were like. In order to attend school, I had to borrow shoes.

The Queen often referred to how her husband 'enjoys driving and does it fast,' as well as how he took her up to London in a 'tiny' MG sports car. Philip owned cars including an Aston Martin Lagonda, an Alvis TD 21 Drophead Coupe and Reliant Scimitar Triplex, as well as other senior royals, including a succession of Land Rovers, including an Aston Martin Lagonda. It was in one of the latter that he infamously had a major accident with a car carrying a woman and a baby near the Sandringham Estate in 2019. The Duke, then aged 97, had to be pulled from the sunroof of his vehicle, before asking the others involved: 'Is everyone alright?' That was the most serious of at least four accidents that the Duke had behind the wheel during his life. Phliip was also a committed aviator and flew 59 different aircraft. His carriage racing, which culminated in several British and European championships, was another passion. Photo: The Duke behind the wheel of an Aston Martin race car in 1963 (left); in the cockpit of a Turbulent ultra-light aircraft in 1959 (bottom right); at the Famous Grouse National Carriage Driving Championships in Windsor Great Park in 1983 (right).