Move from the Exchequer Butler's political judgement was affected by the death of his first wife, Sydney, on 9 December 1954. In February 1955, he increased the bank rate and restored hire purchase restrictions, and the 1955 budget reduced income tax by 6d, which was allegedly based on faulty Treasury statistics. In April,
Anthony Eden succeeded Churchill as prime minister. After the Conservatives won the
May 1955 general election, Butler declined a request he move from the Exchequer and later admitted that was a mistake. By now, it was apparent that the economy was "overheating" since inflation and the balance of payments deficit were rising sharply. The Cabinet refused to agree to cut bread subsidies, and there was a run on the pound. His final budget in October 1955 reversed several of the measures from the spring budget, which led to charges of electoral opportunism. Hugh Gaitskell accused him of having deliberately misled the electorate, which amused Macmillan, who wrote in his diary of how Butler was always talking of "honour" in Cabinet. In December 1955, Butler was moved to the post of
Lord Privy Seal and
Leader of the House of Commons. Although he continued to act as a deputy for Eden on a number of occasions, he was not officially recognised as such, and his successor as chancellor,
Harold Macmillan, insisted on an assurance from Eden that Butler was not senior to him.
Harry Crookshank warned that he was committing "political suicide" by giving up a big department. He recorded that after December 1955 that "it was never again said of me, or for that matter of the British economy either, that we had ''la puissance d'une idée en marche''". Butler suffered from what his biographer calls an "inability to take Eden wholly seriously". A number of his sardonic witticisms about Eden, who was already subject to press criticism, surfaced, and
The Sunday People reported on 8 January 1956 that Eden was to resign and hand over the premiership to Butler. When it was officially denied, on 9 January, Butler told
The Guardian that he was determined to "support the Prime Minister in all his difficulties" and that Eden was "the best Prime Minister we have". Butler threatened resignation in March 1956 over Macmillan's plans to reverse the 6d cut in income tax. Macmillan himself then threatened resignation unless he was allowed to make spending cuts instead. Butler also served as
Rector of the University of Glasgow from 1956 to 1959.
Suez Butler was ill when
Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the
Suez Canal and was not formally a member of the Cabinet Egypt Committee. Butler later claimed that he had tried to keep Eden "in a political straitjacket" and advocated an open invasion of Egypt. Gilmour wrote that this would have attracted even more international opprobrium than Eden's pretence of enforcing
international law. Butler seemed to be doubtful of Eden's
Suez policy but never said so openly. Macmillan recorded on 24 August that Butler was "uncertain" and "wanted more time" before resorting to force. On 13 September, he recorded that Butler preferred to refer the matter to the UN, as Labour and the churches wanted. After the UN voted for an emergency force and an Israeli-Egyptian ceasefire seemed imminent, Butler tried to have the Anglo-French invasion halted. He ended up pleasing neither those who were opposed to the invasion nor those who supported it. On the evening of 6 November 1956, after the British ceasefire had been announced, Butler was observed to be "smiling broadly" on the front bench and astonished some Conservatives by saying that he "would not hesitate to convey" to the absent prime minister the concerns expressed by Gaitskell. Eden's press secretary, William Clark, an opponent of the policy, complained, "God how power corrupts. The way RAB has turned and trimmed". He later resigned, along with
Edward Boyle (
Economic Secretary to the Treasury), as soon as the fighting was over. On 14 November, Butler blurted out all that had happened to 20 Conservative MPs of the Progress Trust in a Commons Dining Room (his speech was described by Gilmour as "almost suicidally imprudent"). Butler had to announce British withdrawal from the Canal Zone (22 November), which made him once again appear an "appeaser" to Conservative supporters up and down the country. That evening, Butler addressed the
1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers, where his pedestrian defence of government policy was upstaged by a speech by Macmillan. Butler was seen to be an indecisive leader who was not up to Macmillan's stature. However, the Press Association were briefed that Rab was "in effective charge" during Eden's absence in Jamaica from 23 November. Shadow Chancellor
Harold Wilson said that Butler had "the look of a born loser" (20 December). Butler spent most of his Christmas break shooting. He later recorded that during his period as acting Head of Government at Number 10, he had noticed constant comings and goings of ministers to Macmillan's study in Number 11, next door, and that those who attended all later received promotion when Macmillan became prime minister. Butler, unlike Macmillan, preferred the assessments of the
Chief Whip (Edward Heath) and
Chairman of the Party (
Oliver Poole), who believed that Eden could survive as prime minister until the summer recess if his health held up. However, there is circumstantial evidence that Butler may have colluded with Eden's doctor,
Sir Horace Evans, to exaggerate the state of Eden's health to encourage him to resign. Evans wrote Butler an ambiguous letter about "your help and guidance over my difficult problems with AE" and added, "Here we have made, I have no doubt, the right decision". Anthony Howard observes that any interpretation of the letter is "purely speculative" and that there is "no concrete evidence" of what actually occurred.
Succession to Eden Eden resigned as prime minister on Wednesday 9 January 1957. At the time, the Conservative Party had no formal mechanism for determining a new leader, but Queen
Elizabeth II received overwhelming advice to appoint Macmillan as prime minister instead of Butler, rather than wait for a party meeting to decide. Churchill had reservations about both candidates but later admitted that he had advised her to appoint "the older man", Macmillan. In the presence of
Lord Chancellor Kilmuir,
Lord Salisbury interviewed the Cabinet one by one and with his famous speech impediment asked each one whether he was for "Wab or Hawold". Kilmuir recalled that three ministers were for Butler:
Walter Monckton,
Patrick Buchan-Hepburn and
James Stuart, all of whom left the government thereafter. Salisbury himself later recorded that all of the Cabinet were for Macmillan except for Patrick Buchan-Hepburn, who was for Butler, and
Selwyn Lloyd, who abstained. Salisbury may not have been an entirely impartial returning officer, as Butler had replaced Salisbury (Lord Cranborne as he had been at the time) as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 1938, who when the latter had resigned over policy towards Italy.
Julian Amery, who was not a member of the Cabinet at the time, alleged that Salisbury interviewed ministers in the order of their loyalty to Macmillan and kept the tally in plain view on the table so that waverers would be more inclined to plump for the winning candidate. Butler later claimed to have been "not surprised" not to be chosen in 1957. In fact, he appears to have fully expected to be appointed and aroused his sister's misgivings by asking, "What shall I say in my broadcast to the nation tomorrow?" The media were taken by surprise by the choice, but Butler confessed in his memoirs that there was a sizeable anti-Butler faction on the backbenches, but there was no such anti-Macmillan faction. Butler spoke bitterly the next day about "our beloved Monarch". Butler attributed his defeat to Macmillan's "ambience" and "connections". He said "savage" things to
Derek Marks of the
Daily Express, who protected Butler's reputation by not printing them and years later told Alistair Horne, Macmillan's biographer that he "could not understand" why he had been passed over after "picking up the pieces" after Suez.
Nigel Nicolson, who had conceded that "in the circumstances", Macmillan was the right choice, wrote of the "melancholy that right had not triumphed" with which Butler proposed Macmillan as leader at the party meeting on 22 January. In Gilmour's view, Butler did not organise a leadership campaign in 1957 because he had expected Eden to hang on until Easter or summer. Campbell wrote, "The succession was sewn up before Rab even realised there was a contest".
Richard Crossman wrote in his diary (11 January), "This whole operation has been conducted from the top by a very few people with great speed and skill, so that Butler was outflanked and compelled to surrender almost as quickly as the Egyptians at Sinai". ==Under Macmillan==