Butler held the Home Office for five years, but his liberal views on hanging and flogging did little to endear him to rank-and-file Conservative members; he later wrote of "Colonel Blimps of both sexes – and the female of the species was more deadly, politically, than the male". Butler later wrote that Macmillan – who kept a tight grip on foreign and economic policies – had given him "a completely free hand" in Home Office matters, which may well be, in Gilmour's view, because reform was likely to blacken Butler in the eyes of Conservative activists. Macmillan's official biographer believes that he simply had no interest in Home Affairs. Butler later said "I couldn't deal with Eden, but I could deal with Mac".