Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 15 Rhagfyr 1949.
Mr Arthur Greenwood
, Wakefield
12:00,
15 Rhagfyr 1949
I am now going to make a challenge to the Tory Party, and I will ask the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) to give an answer to that challenge. When the Tory Party publish as much as we do, then I will undertake—and my comrades will agree with me—to march with them and give any more disclosures they will agree to. That is a fair and open challenge to which I am entitled to receive an answer.
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.
