 Home 's premiership was short and not conspicuous for radical innovation . Hurd remarks , " He was not capable of Macmillan 's flights of imagination " , but he was an effective practical politician . At the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Foreign Office he played an important role in helping to manage Britain 's transition from imperial power to European partner . Both Thorpe and Hurd quote a memo that Macmillan wrote in 1963 , intended to help the Queen choose his successor : 
