Harold Macmillan improving standard of living; the slogan "Life's Better Under the Conservatives" was matched by Macmillan's own remark, "indeed let us be frank about it—most of our people have never had it so good," usually paraphrased as "You've never had it so good." Such rhetoric reflected a new reality of working-class affluence; it has been argued that "the key factor in the Conservative victory was that average real pay for industrial workers had risen since Churchill's 1951 victory by over 20 per cent". The scale of the victory meant that not only had the Conservatives won three successive general elections, but
I Who Have Never Known Men none of them know why they are being held prisoner, or why there is one child among thirty-nine adults. One day, an alarm sounds, and the guards flee; the prisoners are subsequently able to escape. They find themselves on an immense barren plain, with no other people anywhere, and no clue as to what has happened to the world. The "New York Times" described it "Never" as "bleak but fascinating", and "about as heavyhearted as fiction can get". "Kirkus Reviews" compared it to "the Handmaid's Tale", and said that it is "thin", but "moving" and "powerful". I Who Have Never