 Many readers and literary analysts have assumed that Widmerpool was drawn from Powell 's acquaintances . Powell was circumspect and chose not to confirm any of the suggestions put to him . Candidates include Powell 's Eton contemporary Sir Reginald Manningham @-@ Buller ( nicknamed " Bullying @-@ Manner " ) , later ennobled as Lord Dilhorne , who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor during the 1950s . According to Powell , Manningham @-@ Buller was an unattractive figure at school ; he was instrumental in the dismissal of a master who sent an inappropriate note to a junior boy , an action reflected in the novels when Widmerpool instigates the sacking of <unk> . Powell 's brother @-@ in @-@ law , the Labour peer Lord Longford , believed that he was the model for Widmerpool , a proposition that Powell rejected ; Longford had also claimed to be <unk> , another character from the novels . The Labour politician Denis Healey thought that Powell had based Widmerpool on Edward Heath , the British prime minister between 1970 and 1974 . It is possible that the episodes relating to Widmerpool 's spying career are drawn from the activities of Denis Nowell Pritt , a Labour MP who was expelled from the party for his pro @-@ Soviet stance . Powell 's biographer Michael Barber wrote that Cyril Connolly declared his long @-@ standing enemy , the art historian Douglas Cooper , to be a Widmerpool prototype ; Cooper 's companion John Richardson thought that Connolly was joking . 
