"What I do not see is the argument...that we ought somehow to go on a quite different issue, a purely economic issue, to this new extreme which seems, greatly to my regret, to have inspired part of my party. There are no longer the principles of Lord Shaftesbury, Mr. Disraeli or Mr. Churchill. We are reverting to a form of neo-Cobdenism based upon the worst elements of the Manchester school, supported by aphorisms that would have done honour to that popular writer, Dr. Samuel Smiles. The paternalist elements and traditions of the Tory Party that come from its very roots are now unpopular. We are making a great error. It is because the people as a whole trusted those whom they regarded as their natural leaders to help them, support them and protect them that we have had the great authority in the past in our country."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandAcademics from the United KingdomPeople from LondonAutobiographers from the United Kingdom
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Speech in the House of Lords on the Shops Bill that would have liberalised government regulation of Sunday shopping in England and Wales (21 January 1986)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harold_Macmillan
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Harold Macmillan
1957 – 1963
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton OM PC (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative politician and publisher who served six years as Prime Minister (1957–1963). As Prime Minister, he worked to decolonize the British Empire in Africa and repair United Kingdom–United States relations after the Suez Crisis. He also led the Conservative Party to accept the post-war consensus of Keynesian economics and the welfare state. However, he was forced to resign by the Profum
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