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 appointment as Minister of Health Chamberlain presented the Cabinet with an agenda containing 25 pieces of legislation he hoped to see enacted. Before he left office in 1929, 21 of the 25 bills had passed into law. Chamberlain sought the abolition of the elected Poor Law Boards of Guardians which administered relief—and which in some areas were responsible for rates. Many of the Boards were controlled by Labour, and such Boards had defied the government by distributing relief funds to the able-bodied unemployed. In 1929, Chamberlain initiated legislation to abolish the Poor Law boards entirely. Chamberlain spoke in the Commons