I have not looked at the 1940 motion, but I have certainly looked at the debate, which was on the Norwegian campaign.

However, most hon. Members agree that the introduction of the poll tax was a blunder. Most of them also agree—I have been talking to quite a few Conservative Members during the past few weeks—that the way that the Government are handling the disposal of the poll tax is also pretty disastrous. In the short time available, I shall devote my speech to considering what their handling of the poll tax reveals about the Conservative Government. We are perfectly entitled to table a no confidence motion, because the Government's handling of the poll tax reveals that they are no longer fit to govern.

I shall consider the Government's handling of the issue under separate headings. The first is what it reveals about their competence. They must be extremely incompetent to introduce such a foolish tax, one which is now recognised, even by Conservatives, to be pretty disastrous. The Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted before the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service that it was a regressive tax. Certainly Ministers were not saying that a year or so ago, but they are admitting it now.

Secondly, the tax has been extraordinarily difficult to collect. It is not a matter of the persuasive power of one or two hon. Members or the anti-poll tax campaign. Hon. Members know well—the Prime Minister has admitted as much in the secrecy of the Cabinet—that many people could not afford to pay the poll tax. That was the problem with it, which was why it was difficult to collect.

Thirdly, it was administratively very expensive. It was twice as expensive to collect as the rates. If we look at all the new buildings that had to be built in every local authority to cope with the collection of the poll tax, we can see why.

It was incompetent to introduce such a foolish tax and incompetent to persist with it when it became clear what a foolish tax it was and how widespread hostility to it was, as shown by public opinion polls and successive by-elections. Ribble Valley was not the first by-election to be fought on the tax. The Mid-Staffordshire by-election was a poll tax by-election that was won decisively by the Labour party. But the Government persisted in the poll tax and then tried to mitigate its effects by throwing money at it.

That was a disastrous failure. If they had spent some of that money on improving services rather than trying to buy popularity for the poll tax, we would be in a better state today.

I also submit that the Government are incompetent because they have not completely abolished the poll tax. Instead, they are producing this fudged compromise—even Conservative Members know very well that it is a fudged compromise—between two different types of tax, a property tax and "son of poll tax," as the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) called it a few days ago. As the Government have proved themselves incompetent on that scale, I submit that they are not fit to govern.

The Government are also divided. We have had plenty of evidence of that. In a sense, the battles of the Thatcher Cabinet are being fought out publicly. The right hon. Member for Blaby said that he was against the poll tax and had argued against it in Cabinet. He thought that it was a bad idea. The right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) told us in The Times today what an excellent tax it was. If only the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been prepared to give him a bit of money, it would have been successful.

But there is also a division within the Cabinet. Let us be honest about that. We know perfectly well that the Secretary of State for the Environment is in favour of a property tax. He does not believe in a poll tax element. As a faithful member of the Conservative party, he will argue faithfully for it, but he does not believe in it. He has to do that in order to reconcile other elements in the Cabinet, such as the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities, who still believe that there should be a poll tax element. I believe that the Chancellor thinks that as well.

That division reflects a wider division in the Conservative party in the House of Commons, between those who want completely to abolish the poll tax, some of whom I can see here, and those who want to retain an element of the poll tax. Therefore, the Conservative party is very much a quarrelling, factional party. Many groups with strange titles are now cropping up. I am reminded of the Labour party in the early 1980s. Some Conservative Members feel so strongly about issues such as the poll tax that they do not even want the Conservative party to win the general election. That is the state that they have got themselves into. Because they are divided in that way, they are not fit to govern.

Finally, I want to consider what the poll tax reveals about the leadership of the Conservative party. It shows that the Prime Minister is not prepared to take decisions. He was elected primarily by right-wing Members of Parliament; that is why he beat the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). He had their support and he owes them some favours. He has to appease them. The majority of the people who elected him still want a poll tax element.

Rather than produce an effective system of local taxation, the Prime Minister has chosen to appease the right-wing Members who elected him, and is trying to obtain the lowest common denominator of agreement inside his Cabinet. That is why we have this fudged compromise, which does not satisfy anybody in the Conservative party, will not be a runner in the country and will not provide a lasting tax for local government.

We do not even know the details of the new tax. We do not know what element will be a property tax and what element will be the poll tax, as the right hon. Member for Blaby justly pointed out. There is an electoral reason for our not being given such details. The Conservative party is worried about the winners and losers, so it wants to keep the details quiet until after the next general election. That is clear, so let us not have too much high-minded talk about consultation. There are some rather low-minded reasons for the silence as well. I therefore submit that the handling of the poll tax reveals some pretty weak leadership at the top of the Conservative party.

We are entirely right to move a motion of no confidence, not just because the poll tax is a bad tax, not just because it looks as though what will succeed it will also be a bad tax, but because of what it reveals about the Government—their incompetence and division, and the fact that they remain extremely weakly led.

The Opposition were right to table a motion of no confidence, and I shall be delighted to support it in the Lobby tonight. I hope that soon we will be able to go to the country and test people's confidence in the Government as well.