Rise of Neville Chamberlain controversial biography of Chamberlain by Conservative Party chairman Iain Macleod defended Chamberlain's ministerial record. Macleod pointed out that Chamberlain had been a "most valiant" champion of rearmament as Chancellor as early as 1934, but that little was done. According to "Time" magazine, Macleod saw Chamberlain as a "humanitarian industrialist, <nowiki>[a]</nowiki> progressive Lord Mayor of Birmingham and a dedicated Minister of Health who was damned as a 'Tory socialist'<nowiki>[.]</nowiki> Chamberlain had worked tirelessly in the '20s and '30s for the 'noble and fascinating ideal' of fashioning a better life for Britain's workingman." The 1960s and 1970s saw a further reassessment of
Neville Chamberlain British press. Negotiations between the Czech government and the Sudeten Germans dragged on through mid-1938. They achieved little result; Sudeten leader Konrad Henlein was under private instructions from Hitler not to reach an agreement. On 3 August, Walter Runciman (by now Lord Runciman) travelled to Prague as a mediator sent by the British government. Over the next two weeks, Runciman met separately with Henlein, the Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš and other leaders, but made no progress. On 30 August Chamberlain met his Cabinet and Ambassador Henderson and secured their backing—with only First Lord of the Admiralty Duff Cooper dissenting against