Oral Answers to Questions — Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 13 February 1991.
Mr Ronald Brown
, Edinburgh Leith
12:00,
13 February 1991
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about relations with Afghanistan.
Mr Mark Lennox-Boyd
, Morecambe and Lunesdale
We do not have substantive dealings with the Najibullah regime, which is not supported by the Majority of Afghans. We would welcome its replacement by a Government truly acceptable to the Afghan people with whom normal relations would be possible.
Mr Ronald Brown
, Edinburgh Leith
If the British Government are so chummy with Syria and Iran, for example, what is wrong with Afghanistan? To my knowledge, Dr. Najib's Government are not associated with terrorism—certainly, they are a revolutionary Government—but I wonder why there is not one British representative in Kabul. Could it just be that the Tory Government can never forget that the Afghan trade union movement backed the miners during the struggle—[Interruption.] That is true. The Afghan trade union movement backed the miners against the Thatcher regime. We can never forget that.
Mr Mark Lennox-Boyd
, Morecambe and Lunesdale
No, it has nothing to do with the miners. We have not broken off diplomatic relations wit h Afghanistan but the Najibullah regime is only there with the support of the Soviet Union. It remains unrepresentative and unacceptable to a Majority of the Afghans and controls only some 20 per cent. of the territory.
Mr David Atkinson
, Bournemouth East
Can my hon. Friend confirm that a contingent of the Afghan mujaheddin is currently serving in Saudi Arabia? Is not that a welcome development? Can he say what their role is?
Mr Mark Lennox-Boyd
, Morecambe and Lunesdale
I can confirm that a contingent of the Afghan mujaheddin is serving in Saudi Arabia.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
A group of workers who have united to promote their common interests.
The political party system in the English-speaking world evolved in the 17th century, during the fight over the ascension of James the Second to the Throne. James was a Catholic and a Stuart. Those who argued for Parliamentary supremacy were called Whigs, after a Scottish word whiggamore, meaning "horse-driver," applied to Protestant rebels. It was meant as an insult.
They were opposed by Tories, from the Irish word toraidhe (literally, "pursuer," but commonly applied to highwaymen and cow thieves). It was used — obviously derisively — to refer to those who supported the Crown.
By the mid 1700s, the words Tory and Whig were commonly used to describe two political groupings. Tories supported the Church of England, the Crown, and the country gentry, while Whigs supported the rights of religious dissent and the rising industrial bourgeoisie. In the 19th century, Whigs became Liberals; Tories became Conservatives.
