Cub's anticipation of a Conservative defeat in the 1945 general election was a remarkable piece of forecasting, given his distance from the contest. Even more notable was his insouciant response to the outcome. Conservative strength in the Commons had been reduced to less than half the figure after the 1935 contest – 213 as opposed to 432 – and there was carnage in the senior ranks. Of those who served in Churchill's 1945 caretaker administration, 32 were now out of Parliament; 13 of these had held cabinet rank. Cub must have been one of very few Conservatives to choose the word “interesting” to describe this development. His analysis implied that the axe had fallen mostly on the party's old guard who were discredited in the eyes of the public, but naturally most of the survivors came from safe, traditional Conservative constituencies which tended to field safe, “traditional” Conservative candidates. Although after the election the average age of Conservative MPs was 41 years 4 months – more than four years below the Labour figure – the purge had claimed many young victims, notably the thirty-six year-old Peter Thorneycroft. Indeed the party had lost the services of over half the 41 MPs associated with the Tory Reform Committee, which during the war had emerged as the most progressive and promising Conservative grouping; Harold Macmillan, whose Middle Way was admired so much by Cub, had lost Stockton.