Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 1st March 1956.
Or sold to Egypt.
This is a melancholy story and it has continued for year after year from the time I have chosen to start the story. Today, we are discussing the Army Estimates in the light of a two-day debate on the Defence White Paper which, among other things, rightly said that the burden of defence could not be allowed to rise to a level which would endanger our economic future. In my submission, it has done so already. The country faces an economic crisis. The Chancellor tells us that we all have to save—everybody, except the generals. We have to do without television sets, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners, unless we can put down one half of the cost price. Local authorities have to cut down on all those desirable and long overdue improvements—