The 1953 budget cut income tax and purchase tax and promised an end to the excess profits levy. In the summer of 1953, Butler acted as head of the Government when Churchill suffered a stroke while his presumed successor, Eden, was undergoing an operation overseas. He did not strive to seize the premiership. Between 29 June and 18 August 1953, Butler chaired sixteen Cabinet meetings. In July Macmillan recorded a conversation with Walter Monckton, who was willing to serve under Eden but not Butler, whom he thought "a slab of cold fish". Britain's economic problems at this time were worsened by Monckton's appeasement of the trade unions (e.g. the 1954 rail strike, settled on the union's terms with Churchill's backing) and by Macmillan's drive to build 300,000 houses a year.