Besides the Home Office, Butler held other senior government jobs in these years; he likened himself to the Gilbert and Sullivan character "Pooh Bah". In October 1959, after the 1959 general election, he was appointed Conservative Party chairman, a job which required him to attack Labour in the country while as Leader of the House he had to co-operate with Labour in the Commons. His new job prompted an analogy (described as "ludicrous" by Anthony Howard) in "The Economist" with Nikita Khrushchev's rise to power through control of the Soviet Communist Party.