David Winnick
Main Page: David Winnick (Labour - Walsall North)Department Debates - View all David Winnick's debates with the Leader of the House
(9 years ago)
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Mr Sheerman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, too.
Harold was also a brilliant parliamentarian. People who can still remember his days as Prime Minister—before our time in the House—will know what a wonderful command of Parliament he had in the House of Commons. He had a brilliant ability for repartee, which was exhibited in his great speeches during elections. There was a famous occasion when he thought a Conservative supporter had thrown an egg at him during a speech at a big public meeting. He said, “In five years’ time, if the Tories win the election, people won’t be able to afford to buy an egg”, which although I thought it rather harsh, was very funny. He did not only have funny repartee. He said—these words leap off the page—that the Labour party
“is a moral crusade or it is nothing.”
That was matched by him saying:
“The only limits of power are the bounds of belief”,
which is absolutely wonderful. This week he is also particularly appropriate for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because it was Harold Wilson who said:
“A week is a long time in politics.”
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend know that there was a tremendous amount of controversy about continuing to send arms to the apartheid regime in South Africa? The controversy was in the Cabinet, apparently. A number of Harold Wilson’s Cabinet colleagues believed that however much they were against apartheid, arms supplies should continue. Harold Wilson encouraged the signing of an early-day motion by literally hundreds of Back-Bench MPs, of whom I was one. That swayed the argument to a very large extent, and Harold Wilson won the day in Cabinet.
Mr Sheerman
My hon. Friend is adding to the treasury of memories that we recall about Harold Wilson.