Macmillan was himself very much of the small 'l' liberal wing of the Conservative party, a loyal creature of the so-called "post-war consensus", an appeaser by deepest instinct, especially in matters of industrial conflict. His political speciality as Prime Minister (and one emulated by his Labour successor, Harold Wilson) would be to dose the populace with a comforting mixture of warm opium and treacle rather than dunk them in a cold but invigorating bath. Safe in his hands, therefore, would be the "managed economy", cosily complete with exchange controls and Exchequer-inflated, union-empowering "full employment". Safe too would be the welfare state, though ever more greedy in its demands on the taxpayer, ever more corrupting in its encouragement of dependency. In 1957, after all, a general election was in the offing, and Macmillan was the last man at such a time to snatch the warm teat of state maternalism out of a sucking voter's mouth.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Macmillan was himself very much of the small 'l' liberal wing of the Conservative party, a loyal creature of the so-called "post-war consensus", an appeaser by deepest instinct, especially in matters of industrial conflict. His political speciality as Prime Minister (and one emulated by his Labour successor, Harold Wilson) would be to dose the populace with a comforting mixture of warm opium and treacle rather than dunk them in a cold but invigorating bath. Safe in his hands, therefore, would be the "managed economy", cosily complete with exchange controls and Exchequer-inflated, union-empowering "full employment". Safe too would be the welfare state, though ever more greedy in its demands on the taxpayer, ever more corrupting in its encouragement of dependency. In 1957, after all, a general election was in the offing, and Macmillan was the last man at such a time to snatch the warm teat of state maternalism out of a sucking voter's mouth." in the context of "Correlli Barnett, The Verdict of Peace: Britain Between Her Yesterday and the Future (2001), p. 515" to mean that wisdom is timeless.