Another startling fact I learned from Supermac is that the Macmillan family sold Highgrove to the Prince of Wales, & that Rab Butler sold Gatcombe Park to the Queen, as a residence for Princess Anne. As author DR Thorpe remarked, it is some indication of the world in which the higher Tories lived at that time.
These days they socialise in the world of media moguls & tabloid editors, & despite moats & duck houses, their houses may not quite meet the degree of desirability demanded by the modern royalty of bankers & oligarchs. Our politicians are, at best, mere millionaires, not a single billion between them.
Thorpe also said that Macmillan’s demise marked the moment when it was no longer advisable or profitable for Etonians to wear their old school tie. I wonder if David Cameron even possesses such a thing? There are still 19 other Etonians among the current crop of MPs however.
On balance I suspect that, despite the disagreements over policy, the Conservative Party is really rather pleased to have their first proper gentleman leader since Sir Alec Douglas-Home: ‘The fact that Edward Heath did not hold back in his criticisms of Margaret Thatcher was proof to older Conservatives who often actually agreed with those criticisms that he was never really one of them, a gentleman’.
