Orders of the Day — Political Parties (Accounts)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 15 Rhagfyr 1949.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr Quintin Hogg Mr Quintin Hogg , Oxford 12:00, 15 Rhagfyr 1949

At any rate, I was covered in it. That evening I acquired a great personal affection for the hon. Member, and I must say that I was very sorry to see that he had lent his name to this dirty business. I see that the hon. Member has just left the Chamber, but I fully realise that he has no intention of being discourteous.

I rather prefer the open partisanship of the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) to the kind of "holier than thou" attitude that the hon. Member for East Walthamstow has allowed himself to take. As a matter of fact, this Motion has done a certain amount of good. It has provided indisputable evidence of the existence of the occult. When I heard the Lord President of the Council announcing, during his Business statement last week, that time would be found for a Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member for Hornchurch, I looked at the Order Paper to see what that Motion was, verified the fact that there was no Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member, and discovered that the Motion did not appear until nearly 24 hours after time had been allotted for its discussion. I know that the hon. Member for Hornchurch and the Lord President of the Council are above any little piece of political conspiracy, and I know that it was second sight on the part of the right hon. Gentleman which enabled him to appreciate exactly how it was that a Motion in these terms would be put on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Hornchurch.

Not having second sight myself, I had to consult a reputable soothsayer to discover how the Motion came into existence. It happened like this: the date of the Motion appears from its terms; it dates from the period between the announcement of the result of the New Zealand Election and the period before the announcement of the result of the Australian Election. The result of the New Zealand" Election—confirmed, I understand, by cablegrams between Transport House and the headquarters of the New Zealand Labour Party—is that if Labour fights clean it is beaten, and the result of the Australian Election, as all who have studied it know, is that if Labour fights dirty it is beaten just the same. This Motion dates from the intervening period of days.

Then this happened: the Lord President of the Council was sitting happily at the Cabinet board one day with his colleagues, when he said, "What can we give the boys to send them home in good heart for the Christmas holidays?" The Prime Minister, who is a simple and honest soul, said, "Why not give them a bumper debate on the glorious record of the Labour Party?" Whereupon the Lord President said, "No, thank you; they have seen the New Zealand Election result." The Chancellor of the Exchequer then thought of a nice debate about the plight of the country and the energetic measures being taken by the Government to combat it. But that would not do because they were told that the boys were not interested in the plight of the country, but only in their electoral prospects. So, that suggestion was turned down.

They were next told that nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange might provide a useful send-off for the Christmas vacation. Unfortunately, they were reminded that unless they could intimidate those who are at the moment conducting rather successful propaganda against it in the country by false statements about the law relating to corrupt practices, that course might have to be abandoned in the same way as the insurance proposals. Then what was said was this: "First of all, we must have something dirty. Next we must have something unrelated to the needs of the country. Third, we must have something designed to annoy and embarrass our opponents, and enable the humbugs on our side to pretend that we are holier than anyone else." When this classification was read out to the Cabinet, the cry was heard as far as Lord Nelson's column, "We must send for Bing." The hon. Member for Hornchurch, stuffing an article for "The Times" into one pocket and concealing evidence of his Communist sympathies under his blotting paper, was duly summoned and this Motion came into being.