Sittings of the House (Wednesday 17 April)

George Galloway Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[George Galloway (Bradford West) (Respect)]

I have never heard such tosh.

This House of Commons continued its adversarial, bear-pit, unarmed political combat throughout the darkest days of the second world war. Mr Churchill did not ask for Parliament to be silenced and for confrontations across the House to be forbidden when our soldiers were being laid waste. In the Norway debate, the House of Commons rose perhaps to its finest 20th century moment. Nobody said, “Our armed forces have suffered a disaster. The House of Commons cannot meet. The clash of ideas cannot be heard. We must muffle the drums and silence ourselves.” At Dunkirk, the House clashed without pause. Real war leaders like Mr Churchill understood that the whole point of our being here, the whole point of democracy, the whole point of elections is that we do not suspend normal political activity.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[George Galloway]

Happily; I have a lot to say and I may take some time to say it.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He has missed the rather important point that between 1939 and 1945, general elections were suspended, so democracy was suspended during the war and his history is faulty.

[George Galloway]

Actually, there were many by-elections, some of which produced spectacular results—as spectacular as the one in Bradford West just over a year ago.

In any case, is anyone suggesting that Aneurin Bevan did not stand from these Benches and lacerate real war leaders about their conduct of the war? The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is a scholar and a gentleman. He knows well the words that came from Mr Amery on his side at the darkest hour in the Norway debate, which brought about the defenestration of the Prime Minister and the coming to office of Mr Churchill, about whom more, much more, later. We did not suspend our democracy in our darkest hours; why are we suspending it now?

It was said by one of those in the iron-clad consensus on the Front Benches that this is a national funeral. I am sorry, but it is not a national funeral. There can be a national funeral only when there is a national consensus about the person being buried. That consensus does not exist in relation to Mrs Thatcher. No matter how oft people from the Front Benches fawn upon her, pour honeyed words upon her or even—outside this House, of course—tell lies about her and her record, that will not change. The British establishment, and the Opposition parties in particular, are making a profound misjudgment if they imagine that there are not tens of millions of people in the country, all of whom have votes, who are very angry about a whole range of issues that have arisen. With your permission, Mr Speaker, I hope to adumbrate some of those issues in relation to the motion this evening.

If I were to speak shortly, it would be with that great New York phrase, “Enough already.” We have had enough of this; it has gone on too long and gone too far, and this—the idea that we should suspend a vital part of our democratic process for a party political, and private, funeral—puts the tin hat on it.

Do not get me wrong. I will not be demonstrating at the funeral tomorrow; I believe it is wrong to demonstrate at someone’s funeral, but I will not agree to suspend our democracy so that some of the friends of the deceased do not have to make a choice between attending Prime Minister’s question time or going to the funeral. That choice is up to them to make, and it is of course clear that they could do both, although they would—tender sensibilities though they may have—have to come into the bear pit immediately on their return to the House. But that is what they are here for; that is what they were elected to be here for.

Harold Wilson, who won four general elections and did not receive a scintilla of the treatment that the British establishment has rolled out for the deceased on this occasion, said that a week was a long time in politics. This week has been a very long time. We were told at the beginning of the week that it was disrespectful to speak of someone so recently dead. I was told on the BBC yesterday that I should hold my peace until Thursday. How much national mourning, without consensus and without justification, are we supposed to observe?

You know, Mr Speaker, how much personal respect I have for you, so I hope you will accept that I mean nothing personal by this point. However, the decision to muffle Big Ben, just after the BBC muffled “Ding Dong!”, summed the whole thing up. It has become farcical. There is no national consensus around the deceased, and there was no justification for muffling Big Ben because that puts the deceased on a par with Mr Churchill—a very divisive politician. My grandparents helped overturn his car after the count in Dundee in the 1930s when he was thrown out of Parliament in the city.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

I wish to correct the hon. Gentleman. Winston Churchill, then a Liberal MP, was ejected from Dundee in 1922. He served from 1908 to 1922.

[George Galloway]

It is a very important qualification. He was—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I say, as I do not wish the hon. Gentleman to be led away from the path of virtue, that the point may be of interest to scholars but it is at best tangential to the sittings of the House motion?

[George Galloway]

As would have been what I was going to say about Neddy Scrymgeour, the great temperance MP who was Mr Churchill’s partner in the two-Member constituency at that time. How we could do with some temperance, some prohibition in the House today, at least as far as the hon. Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce) is concerned.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I know the hon. Gentleman is developing his argument, but I ask whether he would be good enough to withdraw the reference to an hon. Member who is not present, and to continue with his main speech.

[George Galloway]

I happily withdraw the remark. It was unworthy, but I have some history with the hon. Gentleman. I hope you, Mr Speaker, and the House will forgive me for that unworthy detour down Dundee way.

My point is that Mr Churchill was a deeply divisive figure. He was a man who changed sides, ratted and re-ratted; a man who was in Parliament, out of it and back again; and a man whose conduct of public affairs was very controversial and divisive. However, by the time he died, only a tiny percentage of the population were churlish enough to imagine that such a man should not be given the full 21-gun treatment and the full gun carriage treatment.

Virtually everybody in this country knows that, were it not for Mr Churchill, this Parliament would either not exist or it would speak in German. I argue that the very existence of the country was saved by Mr Churchill. That makes him worthy of a national funeral. That is what made him—whatever one’s point of view of his domestic politics—deserving of the muffling of the chimes of Big Ben, and deserving of the lowering of the cranes on the Thames.

No such consensus exists—you must know this, Mr Speaker—about the deceased in this case. Vast tracts of this land—the north, Scotland, the midlands and south Wales, and other industrial areas of this country, which were reduced to distressed areas in Mrs Thatcher’s term of office—have never forgiven her, but they are being asked to pay for this funeral. In fact, they are not being asked; they are being told that they must pay for it.

The deceased was a great proponent of private enterprise and a great enemy of public expenditure and the role of the state, which she wished to shrink. You were once a devotee of those things, Mr Speaker, but age has brought wisdom, as it has in some respects to all of us. Is that not an irony? As Ken Loach, the great film director, put it, surely we should have put the funeral out to tender to the private sector, and invited companies to sponsor it. Surely that is what Mrs Thatcher would have wanted at a time when our pensioners are shivering to death in a long winter that has stretched into the spring. At a time when we are virtually nationally bankrupt, is it right that the public should be told—not asked, but told—that they must pay for a party political funeral? I believe not.

The public have not been consulted on any of this. If my postbag has any relation to anyone else’s, it must be obvious that a lot of people are very unhappy. The public had one chance, to which I alluded a moment ago. They could download “Ding-Dong!”, the song from “The Wizard of Oz”, as they did in very large numbers, but the state broadcaster, which has led the fawning, censored the music that the public chose with their money in private economic decisions—Mrs Thatcher was a big fan of those.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I was awaiting the conclusion of the hon. Gentleman’s sentence, but I struggle to see how what he has just said relates to the terms of the sittings of the House motion, to which I know it was his intention, and is now his intention, immediately to return.

[George Galloway]

Indeed, Sir. Of course, the backdrop cannot be separated from the motion. Many watching on the Parliament channel will know what the backdrop is—[Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen may laugh, but that is because they are not used to being watched on the Parliament channel.

Perhaps that is just as well—[Interruption.] They cannot silence me. Some Members are not for turning, and I am one of them. Better men than they have tried to do so. [An Hon. Member: “You are hardly ever here.”] But when I am here, people listen, unlike some—[Interruption.] Well, I have had a lot of tweets about the speeches that preceded this one, and they are not at all complimentary.

The backdrop to this motion is clear, and it has been one thing after another. As Mr Macmillan said, it is not one damn thing, it is one damn thing after another. It is the state mourning that was effectively declared by the state broadcaster. It is the decision that the Government made—it is speculated that your office, Mr Speaker, was not wild about the idea—to recall Parliament at vast public expense. Members of Parliament were offered up to £3,700 to fly back from their holidays to attend what was, in effect, a state eulogy for a party political figure, and then to fly back at public expense to their holidays. I hope that IPSA will release the details of who claimed and what they claimed. That was a grotesque and totally unnecessary decision. Monday was the day on which Parliament returned, and Monday was the day on which people could have paid tribute and made the points that they wished to make. That was the second problem. The state mourning was the first, and the unnecessary and fantastically expensive recall of Parliament was the second.

The muffling of the chimes of Big Ben was the third, the banning of “Ding-Dong!” was the fourth and now we have this motion. The shadow Leader of the House, politely as is her wont, made the point that there is every belief in this House that this Prime Minister likes to avoid Prime Minister’s questions. If he avoids it tomorrow, he will have avoided it for four consecutive weeks— [Interruption.] I am at every Prime Minister’s questions— [Interruption.] I again caution hon. Gentlemen—as I must call them—on the Government Benches: people are listening to this debate, and this Thatcherite chorus, cackling like hyenas, would do better to show a touch of sensitivity to the fact that millions of people in this country hate Margaret Thatcher and those who followed her.

If the Prime Minister dodges Prime Minister’s questions tomorrow, he will have dodged them for four consecutive weeks. As Mr Wilson said, a week is a long time in politics. Four weeks is a long time to miss Prime Minister’s questions, the only mass audience—

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[George Galloway]

I would much prefer to give way to the hon. Gentleman than for him to cackle and wobble his ample girth from a sedentary position.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Will you rule whether such turns of phrase are parliamentary?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

There was I under the impression that the hon. Member for Bradford West (George Galloway) was a great orator. In the context of his last comments, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would wish to congratulate this Prime Minister on ensuring that Parliament is not absent for four months, and on bringing the House back in September for those two sessions of Prime Minister’s questions that, until recently, did not happen.

[George Galloway]

That is actually the best point the hon. Gentleman has made all evening. It just goes to show that points made from one’s feet are usually better than points made from a sedentary—indeed, relaxed—position. It is a fair point that Parliament does not retire for the summer for as long as it did in our long period together, Mr Speaker, in the House of Commons. But facts are chiels that winna ding, as we say in Scotland. Every Wednesday, the Prime Minister should stand at the Dispatch Box and face the music for everything that has happened in the previous week. For four weeks it will have been the case that the Prime Minister has not done so. At a time when the British economy is in desperate trouble, the Prime Minister has not been able to be questioned about it. At a time when a Budget has come and gone, which has been near universally regarded—

[Chris Kelly (Dudley South) (Con)]

Welcomed.

[George Galloway]

Welcomed? My goodness. I do not know where it was welcomed—certainly not by the financial commentators; certainly not by the markets; certainly not by the public; certainly not by the opinion polls—but the Prime Minister has not been able to be questioned about it. The Prime Minister has not been able to be questioned about anything for four weeks, neither domestic nor international. Our country is involved in very many serious matters overseas—you will be very happy that I do not seek to dilate upon them, Mr Speaker—and the Prime Minister has not been able to be questioned about them.

I just feel, and I think that the attendance here this evening indicates, that there are many who feel, whether they are in the official Opposition or not, that this has all gone too far. An attempt at canonisation of a person around whom there is—I see that Mr Speaker is frowning. I speak as a religious man. I am not against canonisation where it is justified, but there has to be a consensus before one can be canonised, and no such canonisation is possible—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is an insistent noise from the Back Benches, which I think is rather unseemly. Members cannot both cavil at what is being said and make a raucous noise themselves. I simply say to the hon. Member for Bradford West that I was not frowning at him; I was listening attentively to him.

[George Galloway]

Thank you, sir.

The point is that beatification and canonisation is something that can happen only when there is a consensus. There is no such consensus about the former Prime Minister, yet people are acting, the state is acting. The state broadcaster and now the parliamentary authorities are asking us to accept things that are too close to royal. Mrs Thatcher famously had a slightly fraught relationship with the palace, and I can understand why. Mrs Thatcher might to many Government Members have been great, but she was not great to up to 60% of the electorate when she was alive, and, according to the polls, more than 50% of the people now being polled are against her—strongly against her and feel that she did bad things here and abroad. It brings into discredit this kind of funeral, this kind of state occasion, if it is awarded when many people in the country feel it is unjustified, and feel that it is being rammed down their throats for partisan and ideological reasons, for which they are being asked to pay.

Through you, Mr Speaker, I caution the establishment of which I suspect you are not fully regarded as a member, though you ought to be, because your office is one of the great offices in the land. I say to the establishment, through you, Mr Speaker, that it has gone too far. There has been too much of this. It is too expensive, too elaborate, too regal, and many people in the country are unhappy about it. And to compound it all by effectively cancelling a vital part of British political life would be to add insult to the injury already suffered.

My last point—[Hon. Members: “Hurray!”] Gentlemen—[Hon. Members: “And ladies!”]—and ladies, although the misbehaviour is coming exclusively from gentlemen, as I think they are called, on the Government Benches, my point is this. This funeral did not have to be organised so that it would clash with Prime Minister’s Question Time. It could have been held today or on Thursday. The state was vitally involved in the organisation of this funeral—we know that, because we are paying for it—and it was the state that organised the clash with Prime Minister’s Question Time, so why should the House of Commons be asked to accept the abrogation of its proper role tomorrow, given that the Government are responsible for the clash?

It is too late now to change the time of the funeral, but it is not too late for the House to refuse to abandon its responsibilities at Prime Minister’s questions. If the House divides on this at the end of the evening, as I hope it will, I hope that a decent number of Members of Parliament will reflect the feelings, if not of their own constituents, then of the tens of millions of constituents of many of us on the Opposition Benches—and of some Government Members too—who feel that the adoration of the Maggie has gone far enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) was present for Defence questions yesterday, and heard the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), pay tribute to the recently fallen.

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), for what she said earlier. It put me in mind of a caller to “Any Answers” on Radio 4 on Saturday, who said that, in his view, it was not a matter of whether one supported or opposed what Margaret Thatcher had done, but a matter of understanding what was proper, decent and respectful in relation to someone who had clearly been of immense importance to the country. Indeed, the hon. Member for Newport West said in the debate last Wednesday that history would judge her to have been a great Prime Minister.

The hon. Lady asked about the date of Prorogation. When she is able to tell me that we have completed all the business whose completion is required in the current Session, I shall be able to tell her the date of Prorogation, but I cannot do so until then.

No one would accuse the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) of having changed, but what did change was this country under Margaret Thatcher. Moreover, at each of the elections in 1979, 1983 and 1987 she was returned with an increased vote from the people of the country. That was another change.

The hon. Member for Bradford West (George Galloway) asked the House to search for a consensus. I am not sure that anyone has ever established a consensus with the hon. Gentleman. However, in the midst of a litany of false analogies and irrelevancies, he did say one relevant thing. He said “That is what we are here for: to be here.” I have to say to the hon. Gentleman and the House that since his election on 30 March last year, he has been here for just 13% of the votes.

[George Galloway]

rose—

[Mr Lansley]

No, I am responding to the debate.

Let me just say this: it seems to me that, to coin a phrase, the hon. Gentleman broke his own bat before coming to the crease.

[George Galloway]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House. He would not want to mislead the House or the public on that point. First, I was elected on 29 March, and the House of Commons has been on holiday 50% of the time since then. I am in the House of Commons every day; I just do not want to vote for Tweedledum or Tweedledee—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I ask the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat?

There are two issues here. First, it was not clear to me, but it has since been signalled to me, that the Leader of the House has concluded his speech; I thought he was giving way to the hon. Gentleman. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman should not accuse someone of misleading the House, which I thought I heard him suggest.

[George Galloway]

Mr Speaker, I said he “would not want to” mislead the House.

[Mr Speaker]

I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that correction. There is no argument.

The debate has been concluded by the Leader of the House. Those who wished to speak were called to do so. I do not think anybody would say I have been other than fair in facilitating a proper debate, and I listened respectfully to all the speeches, as I always do.

Question put.