On 17 February 1956 Harold Macmillan, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a speech on the current economic situation to the House of Commons. He listed a series of measures intended to reduce public expenditure, which included a reduction of government subsidies on bread and milk and consequent price increases. Macmillan believed that the existing subsidies could not be justified at a time of full employment and high wages. The Communist Party newspaper, the Daily Worker, thought otherwise and on 21 February published a drawing by its cartoonist 'Gabriel' (Jimmy Friell 1912-1997) with the title Mack the Knife. Friell represented Macmillan as an aristocrat in top hat and opera cloak who stabs a worker in the back and snatches a paper, bearing the words 'Pay rise won by workers', which the unfortunate man has just been given by his boss.

The equating of Macmillan with the gangster hero of Bertolt Brecht's play The Threepenny Opera was topical. The play had opened on 9 February at the Royal Court Theatre and was a great success ('One of the most exciting things seen in London for some time' wrote the theatre critic Harold Hobson). The company responsible for the production was led by Oscar Lewenstein (1917-1997), an early champion of Brecht. Lewenstein had a long association with the Royal Court, becoming a founder of the English Stage Company which was based at the theatre, and in the 1970s its artistic director. He owned this cartoon which was given to the V&A by his widow, Eileen.