Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Wales – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 6 January 2010.
Peter Hain
The Secretary of State for Wales
11:30,
6 January 2010
I take the hon. Gentleman's point, and if he has any concrete examples, I would be happy to take them up with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. The hon. Gentleman will understand the imperative of encouraging people to stay in the world of work. If, sadly, people have been made unemployed, what we are doing, which was not done in the 1980s and 1990s, is to provide them with job opportunities, training and support so that when vacancies arise-there are more and more of them in the Welsh economy generally- they can take that opportunity locally. About half the claimants leave jobseeker's allowance within three months and more than 70 per cent. within six months-a far better record than in the miserable Tory 1980s and 1990s.
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 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.
