Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Work and Pensions – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 8 October 2007.
Peter Hain
The Secretary of State for Wales, The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
2:30,
8 October 2007
I have indeed discussed the report with the Prime Minister, and I have also discussed it with David Freud. Most of it has been accepted in our green paper. It makes an important contribution to ensuring that there are serious reductions in the number of people on long-term benefits and people who are not in the jobs market or even in job-focused benefit environments. I will not, however, follow the Tory path, which I assume the hon. Lady supports, of unfunded, uncosted programmes that will leave an enormous black hole in public finances, and which omit to point out that it is necessary to spend to save. That is what worried me about some of the announcements at the Tory party conference last week.
A Green Paper is a tentative report of British government proposals without any commitment to action. Green papers may result in the production of a white paper.
From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_paper
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.
