Former MP for Ipswich
It seems to me that this debate is long overdue. As the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) said, we are dealing with a constantly deteriorating situation. As long ago as 19th February of this year during Business questions I pressed for a debate on the situation in the Middle East. What is much more important is that a similar request was made by the Leader of the Opposition on...
For reasons which have been frequently explained. One does not want a confrontation between victors and vanquished. Since the question is put to me by my hon. and learned Friend, let me follow it up. I myself saw President Nasser in October, 1967. He then proposed that there should be a revival of the Armistice Commission between Egypt and Israel, and that there should be three on each side....
I remind my hon. Friend of the massacre at Beir Hashim. I was pointing out that Hebron is part of the occupied territories, and it is proposed to settle 250 families there. I quote now from an article in the Sunday Times of 29th March, a report from its correspondent in Jerusalem: 'What you call the occupied territories I call Israel. Hebron was, is and will be part of Zion'. With these words...
It is not undermining the State from which it comes. It is standing up for the country to which it belongs, a very different thing. There are many precedents for dealing with insurgents. There was the attempt to deal with Colonel Grivas in Cyprus, and there must be many other cases in which there have been meetings between the Governments and leaders of revolutionary movements. I do not...
Does my right hon. Friend recollect that the last time that the number of Ministers was substantially increased was in May, 1940, when Sir Winston Churchill formed his wartime coalition Administration? That Government, too, was not wholly unsuccessful.
There is one thing in the speech of the right hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) with which I think all my hon. Friends would agree, namely, his reference to the Gurkhas. In what I have to say I shall not command quite the same measure of agreement among some of my hon. Friends, because I share to the full the concern which has been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman about the state of...
I appreciate that the rate of recruitment was higher than Lord Wigg anticipated at the time. But that does not invalidate my point about the coincidence of the two figures—a point which has brought to the attention of this House by a former Conservative Secretary of State for War. I turn now to the White Paper. It is a deplorable document. In the second paragraph, on page 1, it states:...
We are confronted with this question of manpower. Again, speaking for myself and for no one else, I do not think that we ought to dismiss as out of the question any return to national service. I dislike conscription just as much as does any hon. Member, but I do not think that either side in the discussion ought to take up a dogmatic attitude and say that never need we return to any form of...
