Harold Macmillan

Macmillan's premiership is bracketed by two cabinet moments. In January 1958 his entire Treasury team, Thorneycroft, Powell and Birch, resigned over spending, and he dismissed it as 'little local difficulties'. In July 1962 he sacked a third of his cabinet in a single day, the 'Night of the Long Knives', which damaged him more than it helped. In between, Butler ran much of the domestic government while Macmillan handled foreign affairs and decolonisation with Iain Macleod.