The epithet Night of the Long Knives is given to July 13, 1962, when the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan sacked the following members of his Cabinet:

• Lord Kilmuir — Lord Chancellor
• Selwyn Lloyd — Chancellor of the Exchequer
• David Eccles — Minister of Education
• Harold Watkinson — Minister of Defence
• John Scott Maclay — Secretary of State for Scotland
• Charles Hill — Minister of Housing and Local Government and Welsh Affairs
• Lord Mills — Minister without Portfolio

This unprecedented action was mockingly named by the newspapers, after the 1934 Nazi Night of the Long Knives^[1]

Jeremy Thorpe, one of Macmillan's political opponents, is quoted as saying:

“

greater love hath no man than this, that he should lay down his friends for his life.

”

This quote is adapted from John 15:13.

[edit] References

Notes

Bibliography

• Nigel Fisher - Harold Macmillan A Biography

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