 Instead he was posted to Palestine, before leaving the army in 1946 to take care of the family estates of Gartshore and Woodhall in Lanarkshire, which he inherited on the death of his grandfather.After early defeats as a candidate for the constituency of East Dunbartonshire in 1950 and 1951, he became Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and the Border at the 1955 general election, and represented that constituency for 28 years.He held his first government posts under Harold Macmillan as a Lord of the Treasury (government whip) between 1961 and 1962 and under Macmillan and then Sir Alec Douglas-Home as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour between 1962 and 1964.