official bank rate to 4%, cut food subsidies by 40%, reduced taxes and increased pensions and welfare payments, the cumulative effect being to increase foreign exchange reserves but depress domestic demand. His 1953 budget cut income tax and purchase tax and promised an end to the excess profits levy. When Churchill suffered a stroke in the summer of 1953, an illness that was concealed from the public, Butler acted as head of the Government since Churchill's presumed successor, Eden, was in the United States having medical treatment. 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 considered "a slab of cold fish". Britain's economic problems were worsened by Monckton's appeasement of the trade unions (the 1954 rail strike was settled on the union's terms with Churchill's backing) and by Macmillan's drive to build 300,000 houses a year. Butler was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in 1954. He supported Churchill's proposal for Eden to take "command of the Home Front" in summer 1954, not least as he hoped to succeed Eden as Foreign Secretary. Butler was one of the ministers who demanded to Churchill's face (22 December 1954) that he set a date for his retirement. Under Eden Move from the Exchequer Butler's political judgement was affected by the death of his first wife, Sydney, on 9 December 1954. In February 1955, he increased the bank rate and restored hire purchase restrictions, and the 1955 budget reduced income tax by 6d, which was allegedly based on faulty Treasury statistics. In April, Anthony Eden succeeded Churchill as Prime Minister. After the Conservatives won the May 1955 general election, Butler declined a request he move from the Exchequer and later admitted that was a mistake. In an unfortunate speech on 18 October, he commented that the country must not sink into "easy evenings with port wine and over-ripe pheasant". The Daily Mirror commented that he had "dropped his silver spoon upon the polished floor". By now, it was apparent that the economy was "overheating" since inflation and the balance of payments deficit were rising sharply. The Cabinet refused to agree to cut bread subsidies, and there was a run on the pound. His final budget in October 1955 reversed several of the measures from the