Supermac’s 'old trick'

Vicky, Evening Standard, 1958

Peregrine Worsthorne, now 90, writes in this week’s Spectator about his encounters as a journalist with eight US presidents. I liked this brief digression about a certain UK prime minister:

Incidentally, Harold Macmillan, when prime minister, also knew a thing about flattering journalists. Towards the end of an interview I was having with him in Downing Street, a flunky interrupted to say that the American ambassador had arrived. ‘Be so good as to ask his Excellency to wait,’ came the reply, and the conversation continued on its stately way for at least 20 more minutes. Mentioning this to a colleague, my pride was swiftly deflated when he replied: ‘That’s a very old trick of his — he plays it on us all.’