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Tag: 2001

  • Quentin Davies – 2001 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    Quentin Davies – 2001 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    The speech made by Quentin Davies, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, at the Conservative Party Conference held in Blackpool on 10 October 2001.

    The words courage, vision and leadership are often overused in politics. But not so in David Trimble’s case they are entirely justified.

    Nobody has done more to try and bring together a community scarred by thirty years of terrorism or, in David’s own words, to build a Northern Ireland at ease with itself.

    Once again this morning, David Trimble restated the central Unionist case with clarity and precision.

    It is a case that we Conservatives, as a Unionist Party, support.

    Our two parties have always shared a great deal in common.

    Above all we are united in our commitment to the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

    Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom is based on consent – the consent of the people who live there.

    We will always uphold the democratic wishes of the people of Northern Ireland.

    And we will never allow the future of Northern Ireland to be determined by violence.

    In Northern Ireland, just like anywhere else in the world, terrorism must never be allowed to succeed, and democracy must always triumph.

    Over the last four weeks the whole world has been forced to face up to the reality of terrorism. We have seen its hideous face in this country before. Our own Party bears the scars.

    We will never forget Brighton and those who died and were maimed there. We will never forget the murders of Airey Neave and Ian Gow, and the many bombings of our cities.

    But the people of Northern Ireland have lived with terrorism – never knowing whether a parked car might contain a bomb, or their own house might be the next one to be firebombed – day in day out for thirty years. 3,600 murdered and 40,000 wounded.

    It is an appalling story. Yet one in which the Royal Ulster Constabulary, supported by the Army in Northern Ireland, where our own leader served, have played an heroic role.

    In coming to this afresh, as Iain Duncan Smith has asked me to do, I desperately want this era in Northern Ireland to be at an end.

    The Belfast Agreement held out that hope. Many people had to swallow hard. I expressed at the time my personal revulsion at the premature release of serious criminals – including murderers and multiple murderers. It was the politicisation of justice. But it had a purpose, if the parties to the Agreement kept their word, in spirit, as well as deed.

    The Irish Republic did. They changed their constitution. The British Parliament did, it legislated for devolved government including both sections of the community sharing power. The Ulster Unionist Party did, it was prepared to share government with Sinn Fein, the political representatives of men and women who had pursued their political objectives by murder and terror.

    For that remarkable sacrifice the world has properly saluted David Trimble with the Nobel Peace Prize.

    But this was an Agreement with many parts. And while prisoners convicted of terrorist offences were to be released within two years, so was decommissioning of illegal weapons to be completed within two years.

    As we know, all the prisoners were released within the 2 years. And now more than 3½ years have passed and not a single weapon or ounce of explosive has been decommissioned by Sinn Fein-IRA. All we have had from Sinn Fein-IRA have been vague statements and empty promises sometimes cynically made before important meetings and then withdrawn thereafter. Sinn Fein-IRA has been playing a cat and mouse game with the Government, and there is very little doubt in anyone’s eyes in Northern Ireland, who is the cat and who is the mouse.

    It is hardly surprising that there is now a crisis in the institutions in Belfast when all the parties have fulfilled their obligations under the Agreement except Sinn Fein. And the Government has not taken any action to sanction them.

    Why did the Government decide to release all the prisoners without even a start being made on decommissioning? They had no need to do so under the Agreement. We tried to link the two in amendments we tabled in the House of Commons to the Northern Ireland Sentences Bill in 1998. The Government rejected these.

    Whatever it was that possessed them it was the most colossal mistake. The result is that as the crunch time comes for the Assembly and for the Executive, created by the Belfast Agreement, the Government have no instruments of leverage left – either with Sinn Fein IRA or with so-called Loyalist paramilitary groups.

    The Secretary of State the weekend before last threatened the UDA with being “specified”. Unfortunately being specified means absolutely nothing. It does not enable the authorities to do a single thing they could not do anyway. That is utterly unsatisfactory.

    We must be as clear and resolute in tackling terrorism at home as abroad.

    We simply cannot have two sets of rules – one for terrorism at home and one for terrorism abroad. And let me say that we reject with contempt the characteristic hypocrisy of Gerry Adams who said in Dublin 10 days ago that terrorism was ethically indefensible but that the IRA were freedom fighters. In a democracy that distinction does not exist. And Northern Ireland is a democracy.

    What then should we now do? Is it time to reconsider the Belfast Agreement?

    I believe the answer is “no”. The Agreement as signed remains the only framework for peace that is actually or likely to be available to us. We should try, even at this eleventh hour, to make it work.

    The Government have gratuitously given away their most valuable card. They cannot now get it back. But we should insist on three things. First, no more concessions whatever – least of all on policing or security – until there is real and verified decommissioning.

    The suggestion in the negotiations at Weston Park that there should be further concessions, including allowing those with terrorist convictions to sit on district police boards, must be utterly rejected.

    Second, the Government must use to the very full all the new powers they have promised to ask Parliament for and the European Union’s new anti-terrorist measures to counter international terrorism, to cut off funds, and otherwise sanction, any organisation promoting violence in this country.

    Third, we must prevail on our friends abroad, including in the US, to treat terrorist threats to us in exactly the same way as we are treating terrorist threats to them. And if terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland, and the political parties that support them, do not decommission, every travel facility, every opportunity to raise money, every chance to present themselves falsely as good citizens or as a peaceful democratic party must be closed off to them.

    And that must include NORAID.

    Ladies and gentlemen, we find ourselves once again, as our forbears and predecessors did several times in the twentieth century, in 1914 to 1918, in 1939 to 1945 or in the crises of the Cold War, facing the threat of organised evil, of a threat to our very civilisation, on an international scale.

    Once again, as then, the Conservative Party will show the way, in quiet but unbreakable resolution, in instinctive patriotism, in firm solidarity with our friends and allies in America, the rest of Europe and around the world. And once again, whatever the sacrifices and difficulties we may face along the way, that spirit will ultimately prevail.

  • David Trimble – 2001 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    David Trimble – 2001 Speech to Conservative Party Conference

    The speech made by David Trimble, the then Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, to Conservative Party Conference on 10 October 2001.

    May I thank you for the invitation to speak here today. I have always wanted to see Ulster Unionism closer to the heart of British politics. Today will mark a further step in that direction. I am also glad to see this invitation has been noticed elsewhere. I happened to be in Downing Street last week and someone said to me, “I see you’re addressing the Tory Conference.” I said that it was nothing odd, after all he had a guest at his. Indeed I remarked that his guest Gerhard Schroeder said he had come to the Labour conference as part of his quest to unite Europe. My object today, however, is much more modest.

    Obviously we meet at a very special time. May I say how proud I am at the contribution Britain is making at the moment. The attack on the World Trade Center was the greatest terrorist attack on the British people since the defeat of Hitler. It affected people from all parts of the British Isles – at least three of the dead came from Northern Ireland. We all know there may be greater challenges ahead for our armed forces and indeed for society here in Britain and our thoughts and prayers are with our servicemen and all those who protect us at home or abroad.

    But the Government today is doing precisely what we would want and expect a British government to do and it will be supported.

    In a situation like this we know the need to act and act decisively even though, inescapably, one must act on imperfect information producing results that may fall short of the ideal.

    But if I can digress, Britain and America find it easier to act because they have governments capable of taking decisions. The hesitant and sometimes uncertain responses of our European partners are because in most cases they are governed by coalitions. Inevitably they are less capable of quick and resolute decision. And, of course, coalitions are the inevitable consequence of proportional representation. I have had experience of more than one form of proportional representation. But I must resist the temptation of telling you of the drawbacks of PR.

    But if the response to Bin laden and the Taleban is clear-cut, unfortunately at home in Northern Ireland, the position is not so clear. The problem is uncertainty and the Government’s reluctance to grasp the nettle.

    I still think John Major was right when he began the process. Whatever one might think of the character of those involved in terrorism, if they were saying that they were prepared to turn their back on terrorism and embrace peace and democracy, then, if only for the sake of the people who identified with them politically, it was right to explore the chance of peaceful evolution.

    The problem is that the terrorists have tried to have it both ways – the ballot box and the armalite. They have delayed a clear and unequivocal commitment to peace.

    We can all go back over the last few years and say we would have done this or that differently. But the point today is that I and my party are now bringing matters to a head in order to force Sinn Fein and the IRA to decide. We are not doing this cynically to exploit the mood after 11 September. We have been steadily, patiently, building the pressure since last October. On Monday we took the final steps, which will result, by about today week, in the resignation of the Unionist Ministers from the Northern Ireland Executive. This will be shortly followed by the removal therefrom of the Sinn Fein Ministers until they prove by decommissioning that they have left violence behind.

    We have waited a long time – three and a half years since the Agreement – seventeen months since the IRA itself promised to put their weapons beyond use. If they are ever going to do it, it must be now. If they do, fine. Then the new institutions will bed down. If they do not it will be clear that we must change the institutions so they can survive Sinn Fein’s failure. There may be reluctance to make those changes, but the need will be inescapable.

    Either way I look forward to greater certainty and stability in Northern Ireland. But Northern Ireland does not exist in isolation. It is part of the United Kingdom. There is a wider context, which we should consider.

    So it is natural to consider our relationship with national politics. Because I am here, some have speculated that I am going to talk about future links between Conservatives and Ulster Unionists. And of course there was for a long time a structural relationship between our parties and there is a strong continuing friendship. But this is too big an issue to be approached simply in a sectional way. I would prefer to reflect first more broadly.

    There is a communal aspect to party structures in Ulster. This has some unfortunate consequences. Some who do not want a united Ireland will vote nationalist out of a perceived need for communal solidarity. On the other hand some opt out of politics completely because they dislike the communal background of most parties. Most Ulster Unionists would think of themselves as small “c” conservatives. But some would identify more with labour and are Unionist for communal reasons.

    Once it was different. In the nineteenth century, both the Liberal and Conservative parties organized throughout Ireland. In the early twentieth Labour too organized there. But in response to Irish nationalism those involved in those parties coalesced to form Ulster Unionism. It was understandable and for decades it gave us stability. But it has this disadvantage – politics in Northern Ireland are based on a nationalist framework of reference. Parties are based on the fundamental issue of whether they are for or against a united Ireland.

    Compare Scotland. Parties there are based on a British framework of reference. The major British parties are there providing to the Scottish people the full range of British politics and then, alongside them there is a Scottish nationalist party. To a British person who wants to see and take part in British politics, the Scottish model is preferable to that we have in Northern Ireland.

    To its credit the Conservative Party has recognized this. Moreover it is important that the decision in the late 80s to organize in Northern Ireland was taken in response to pressure from the grassroots of the party. They felt, rightly, that some of the party’s policies on Northern Ireland were wrong, and they wanted to send a message of sympathy to the British people of Ulster.

    But a move by Conservatives alone could not break the mold. If things are to change, if we are to move from a Irish nationalist to a British pluralist basis of politics, then we need two things.

    First all the national parties must move. I am sure that this party will do its bit. The problem is Labour. It too must be prepared to move. There is an element in Labour sympathetic to Irish nationalism who have resisted this. But they must realise that, with the acceptance by the Irish government and by all the Irish nationalist parties of the consent principle, their attitudes must change.

    If Tony Blair was right when, on his first visit to Ulster as Prime Minister in May 1997, he said to some primary school children, that there would not be a United Ireland in their lifetime, then Labour has a duty to provide political opportunities for those children throughout their lives. And Labour members with Irish nationalist sympathies should remember the considerable contribution to the positive development of community relations in Scotland that resulted from Wheatley’s decision to take the Irish nationalist organization in Scotland into the Labour party there.

    The second thing concerns the party politics in Northern Ireland. Clearly it will be radically affected. I know there will be many in all parties, my own included who will be cautious. And we will not want to give up our capacity to exercise our own judgment on local issues. Moreover it is not until there is a sense of stability, a sense that Ulster’s place within the Union is secure, that the Assembly and the new arrangements have bedded – not until all that is settled will folk focus fully on these wider issues.

    But I am sure that they will want to address these wider issues. I am sure that the basic concepts of the Agreement are sound – the consent principle to settle the constitutional issue – a regional assembly to give democratic accountability on local issues – an Irish dimension to acknowledge the identity of nationalists.

    But more is needed. The Assembly is limited. It has to operate within the context of the overall economic and social policy of the national government. If the Assembly is all there is the people will not fell that they are properly involved in politics. Taxation, expenditure, defence, foreign policy, are still determined in London. Unless there is a sense of involvement and accountability on those issues, the electorate in Northern Ireland will not be satisfied.

    This problem does not exist with regard to Scotland and Wales. There the people can vote for the national parties who decide these matters. I do not think we will have a healthy political system until the people of Northern Ireland have a similar opportunity to “turn the rascals out”. And it is in the interests of the people of Great Britain, and in the interests of the people of the Republic of Ireland to encourage the development of healthier politics in Northern Ireland.

    There is another aspect too. The present structures prevent a person in Northern Ireland participating in British national politics. The last two governments contained Ministers from Northern Ireland. But Sir Brian Mawhinney and Kate Hoey had to leave Northern Ireland in order to be able to participate.

    It reminds me of the comparison between Belfast and Bangkok. The question is what can you do in Bangkok that you cannot do in Belfast? The answer of course is join the Labour party. Northern Ireland is the only place on the globe where you cannot join Labour. It is a civil rights issue.

    This is not something that is going to change overnight. It is not on the agenda today. But it is something we should think about. It will probably be on tomorrow’s agenda. It is right that it should for in a sense it is just filling in the British dimension to the Agreement. When the time comes I believe this party will be ready. I hope mine will be. Together I think we can meet the need. The real challenge, however, is for New Labour and Tony Blair.

    Mr. Blair made a good beginning on Northern Ireland. That May 1997 speech was sound on the basic principles. Without him there would not have been an Agreement in April 1998.

    But then came the implementation. Understandably he left much of that to others. To an extent he took his eye off the ball. Expediency slithered into appeasement. Confidence in the Agreement ebbed as people felt that the concessions were all one way.

    But there is the chance now to recover – indeed to fulfill the original promise. The paramilitaries can be faced down – the Assembly stabilized.

    And by moving forward with this party he could offer a range of political alternatives to the people of Ulster.

    It is often said that we are the prisoners of history.

    But the key on outside.

    Mr. Blair it is time to turn it.

    Time to treat the people of Northern Ireland as fully part of the United Kingdom.

  • Theresa May – 2001 Speech on “Culture of Spin Within Government” [Jo Moore]

    Theresa May – 2001 Speech on “Culture of Spin Within Government” [Jo Moore]

    The speech made by Theresa May, the then Conservative Party chair, in the House of Commons on 23 October 2001.

    Thank you Mr Speaker and I would like to move the motion standing in my name and that of my Right Honourable and Honourable friends.

    Mr Speaker I am sure we will all remember the events of September 11th for the rest of our lives.

    Just as past generations have defined themselves by what they were doing when President Kennedy was assassinated so a whole generation of people will define themselves by what they were doing when they saw the events of September 11th.

    Up and down the country people watched their televisions in disbelief and wondered if what they saw could actually be happening.

    Let me refresh the memory of Honourable Members on those events.

    At 1:45 in the afternoon British time a plane travelling from Boston to Los Angeles, carrying 92 people, crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.

    Fifteen minutes later, at 2:00 British time a second plane, carrying 64 people, hit the south tower.

    At 2:30 British time a third plane, carrying 65 people, crashed into the Pentagon in Washington – and workers at companies such as Cantor Fitzgerald based in the World Trade Centre phoned their loved ones and left messages telling them they were about to die.

    Between 2:30 and 3:00 British time, major Government buildings in Washington were evacuated in anticipation of a further strike.

    Eyewitnesses and those watching on television saw bodies falling from the upper floors of the World Trade Centre.

    Between 3 and 3.30pm British time both towers of the World Trade Centre collapsed.

    At 3.30p.m the Prime Minister abandoned his speech to the TUC in Brighton.

    I’m sure that Members on all sides of the House shared with me the sense of utter disbelief as we watched those horrifying scenes.

    The world stood transfixed, unable to comprehend the horror that was unfolding before our very eyes.

    And yet in the midst of all of this, at 2:55, Ms Jo Moore, special adviser to the Secretary of State, his appointee, sent an e-mail to her departmental colleagues saying, ‘It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors expenses?’

    To think that someone’s immediate reaction was to see what was happening in New York and Washington, not as a human tragedy but as a political PR opportunity, which Ministers should make the most of, is almost beyond understanding.

    The events of that day marked a change in the way we viewed our own position in the world.

    But they also marked the day when the culture of this Government’s news management stepped beyond the acceptable and became the disreputable.

    This motion today is not one that we have moved lightly.

    But it is a sad commentary on the attitudes and approach of this Government and on the culture of spin nurtured by this Government that Ministers’ actions have brought us to this debate today.

    And I am not alone in feeling this way:

    – Speaking of the email sent by Jo Moore, the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, the Hon Member for Cannock Chase said ‘The question is whether what happened is consistent with any notion of public service that I or anybody else has. I thought at the time it wasn’t and I haven’t changed my mind now’. Her actions were ‘incompatible with public service’.

    – The Hon Member for Hornchurch said ‘the behaviour she’s displayed, it flies in the face of any public service ethos that I have ever heard of and it flies in the face of everything the Labour Party ever stood for.’

    – The Prime Minister said in this House on 17 October Hansard column 1165 ‘I do not defend in any shape or form what Jo Moore said, which was horrible, wrong and stupid’.

    Given those comments and the sense of outrage that has been felt across this House and outside Parliament I find it incomprehensible that Ms Moore is still in her post.

    It reflects not only a lack of understanding on her part, but also a sorry lack of judgement on the part of the Secretary of State.

    But in relation to the Secretary of State’s position there are a number of questions that still need to be answered.

    My hon friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale wrote to the Secretary of State on 12 October asking him to state publicly whether Jo Moore still had his firm support, give an assurance that no-one acted on the advice in the e-mail, and say whether or not he had spoken to Ms Moore before she sent the e-mail.

    So far he has not replied.

    So I invite the Secretary of State not just for his own sake but to restore some faith in government to take this opportunity to respond to the following questions:

    – Where was the Secretary of State on the 11th September?

    – Did the Secretary of State speak to Jo Moore on the 11th September; and, if so, at what time?

    – Did the Secretary of State speak to any one else in his office about the e-mail from Jo Moore on 11th September?

    – How did the Secretary of State learn of the existence and the content of the e-mail and who told him?

    Now of course it has been pointed out that the member of staff in question was disciplined, but again on this there are a number of outstanding questions surrounding the procedure that was followed.

    The Secretary of State needs to answer these in order to allay concerns in this House and elsewhere.

    It would appear that having initially not taken any action, when the story of the email broke on 8 October, the Secretary of State disciplined Ms Moore personally.

    The normal procedure is for the Permanent Secretary to discipline civil servants and special advisers, yet in this case the rebuke by the Permanent Secretary seems only to have been made after some delay, and only then because journalists were claiming that the Secretary of State had broken the rules on disciplinary action.

    This is a case in which the Secretary of State said that she had done wrong. The PM said that her action was horrible. But one in which ministers were determined from the outset that she should not lose her job.

    Just what does it take for a spin doctor to lose their job in this Government?

    – Why did the Secretary of State take it upon himself to protect her job before the Permanent Secretary had any chance to investigate?

    – Doesn’t all this show that the Secretary of State has indulged in grubby politics even as he sought to respond to Jo Moore’s disgraceful email?

    – And is it not the case that he clings to Jo Moore because he knows that if she goes, he is next in line?

    Later still of course we had Ms Moore’s apology.

    It took a week, it contained no direct apology to the families of those involved in the horrific events of September 11th, rather she seemed most concerned to apologise to the Government and Ministers.

    And then there was the manner of her apology.

    Any interview with a special adviser should be authorized – we do not know who did that nor do we know why Sky News was chosen initially as the sole recipient of the apology.

    And for many of us the most telling aspect was not the apology but the look on her face when she turned away from the cameras.

    She spun her way in and she has tried to spin her way out.

    But of course the email sent by Jo Moore on 11 September is not the only example we have of this culture of spin in Government – this canker of this culture of spin that lies at the heart of government.

    There are other examples from the DTLR.

    Ms Moore herself was involved in trying to persuade a junior civil servant to leak information to journalists aimed at discrediting Bob Kiley the London Transport Commissioner while he and the Secretary of State were involved in a dispute over the future of London Underground.

    That she did so was confirmed yesterday in a written answer at Hansard, col 94. Surely this is contrary to the code of conduct for special advisers yet no action was taken against her.

    Action was taken but instead of reprimanding his special adviser, the Secretary of State’s involvement was aimed at the Department’s Director of Information Alun Evans who had protested on behalf of his member of staff.

    5 days later the Director of Information was moved to another post.

    The question is did he leave the Department voluntarily. Perhaps the Secretary of State would like to answer that today.

    I understand that the posts of Director of Information and Head of News in the Department are vacant and appointments are due to be made in the next few weeks.

    It would help to restore a degree of confidence among staff in the Department if the Secretary of State would today state categorically that Ms Moore will have no role whatsoever, will not be consulted or invited to comment, on those appointments.

    The Secretary of State must answer these questions if he is to clear up some of the confusion that surrounds these events.

    Because the Secretary of State has something of a record when it comes to press officers.

    While he was a minister at the then Department for Education and Employment, in 1997, Jonathan Haslam resigned, reportedly after a row with the Right Honourable gentleman who had asked him to issue a press release criticising the record of the previous government.

    The charge against the Secretary of State is that he has perpetuated the culture of spin at the heart of government by his connivance in the politicisation of press officers.

    He must also, however, answer the accusation that, whilst the Government outwardly professed to be as disgusted as the rest of us, they appear internally to have followed Ms Moore’s advice.

    Because in the immediate aftermath of the events of the 11th September a number of ‘bad news’ stories were indeed released.

    We all know that the, now infamous, councillor’s expenses story was indeed released the following day.

    According to press reports the Rt Hon Member for Greenwich and Woolwich insists that that the announcement in question was cleared for publication on September 10th.

    Yet, press reports also suggest that the release was, unusually, sent to the Local Government chronicle only an hour before their press deadline.

    Chris Mahony, News Editor of the Local Government chronicle puts it very well when he says “To be thinking of such things at such a time shows that these people’s minds are even weirder than we thought.”

    But September 12th also saw a release on pensions for councillors and the release of new planning guidance for the West Country, which will force the construction of 200,000 more buildings on green fields, irrespective of local wishes.

    On the 14th September the Government published exam results, which showed that standards in Maths amongst 11 year olds were actually getting worse.

    The 4th October saw the announcement of the cancellation of the proposed Picketts Lock athletics stadium, jeopardising the chances of our hosting the 2005 world athletics championships.

    And of course we have seen over the past few days yet more examples of the problem of spin.

    The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had to come to the House yesterday to defend herself against allegations of spin after issuing a significant press release on errors made in tests on sheep brains for evidence of BSE had been released to the press late one night with no press conference.

    But perhaps even more significant was the personal apology given yesterday in another place by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald who had to apologise to the House.

    Not only for the fact that he had given an unclear answer to the House leading their lordships to believe that the number of special advisers had only gone up under Labour from 78 to 81 when in fact the number has increased from 38 under the last Conservative Government to 81, but he also had to apologise for the fact that his officials tried to persuade Hansard to change the written record.

    And now of course following the notorious email, the Government has had to appoint a city PR firm to do its spinning rather than Ms Moore – more taxpayers money being spent on the government’s image.

    […]

    But it is not only Opposition and Government MPs who have expressed their disgust at the attitude of Ms Moore and of Ministers in defending her – as any perusal of the letters pages of the newspapers since the event will confirm.

    … This issue goes beyond the actions of one government spin doctor.

    It is not just about what Ministers have referred to as a single mistake.

    It goes to the very heart of the approach this Government takes to the electorate and to Parliamentary democracy.

    It typifies a culture of spin that says whatever the issue spin matters more than substance.

    Little wonder that there is an attitude of cynicism to politics and politicians among the general public when they hear of actions such as this which tell them that the Government is more interested in losing a few announcements than it is in the feelings of people whose loved ones had died in the horrific tragedies of September 11th.

    And it strikes at the heart of a relationship that has underpinned and strengthened our governments over the centuries that essential relationship between the non-political civil servants, working hard with dedication whoever is in government and the politicians they serve.

    I wonder what decent hard-working civil servants think when they see Jo Moore keeping her job.

    This culture of spin brings government and politicians into disrepute. It tarnishes Parliament.

    These are indeed bad news stories.

    But in this whole sorry saga we have a bigger one.

    It is a bad news story that at a time when all thoughts should have been focused on support for our friends in the US, people will read in their newspapers that politicians were intent on pulling the wool over their eyes.

    It is a bad news story because, at a time when people needed clear leadership, straightforward talk and honesty from all in government – they had the sense that they were being deceived.

    It is a bad news story because at time that brought out the best in so many people, they heard that, in some of their politicians, it had brought out the worst.

    When our armed forces are risking their lives half way around the world, when we are seeking to rally public opinion during the difficult times that may lie ahead, the Government has a particular responsibility to place its conduct beyond reproach.

    In the matter of Jo Moore it has failed in that duty.

    Despite all of the available evidence, against the advice of senior members opposite and contrary to the better judgement of some members of its own Cabinet, the Government has decided to retain its confidence in her.

    In the process it has inflicted unnecessary damage on our national life.

    By her actions, Ms Moore has demeaned the whole notion of public service. By its failure to act against her, this Government has debased both politics and itself.

    I beg to move the motion.

  • Iain Duncan Smith – 2001 Speech on “No Place for Racism in the Conservative Party” at Asian of the Year Dinner

    Iain Duncan Smith – 2001 Speech on “No Place for Racism in the Conservative Party” at Asian of the Year Dinner

    The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, at the Asian of the Year dinner, on 25 October 2001.

    “It is a great pleasure for me to be here tonight to present the Asian of the year award for 2001. I would like to add once again my congratulations to Mr Gujral on winning that award. You typify so many of the values that I associate with British Asians, of hard work, enterprise and through your extensive charitable work, a strong commitment to helping the wider community. They are values that we all hold in common. This award is a tremendous achievement and I know I speak for all of us here when I say it is richly deserved.

    At the outset I would like to thank Jasbir Sachar, Managing Director of the Asian Who’s Who International for organising this event, that is firmly established as one of the high points of the British Asian calendar. Your annual publication serves as an essential work of reference about the British Asian community and, just as important, charts your success. So I am delighted to have been able to contribute the foreword to this year’s publication, as I am to receive a copy tonight.

    It is also a great honour for me to follow His Excellency Nareshwar Dayal, the High Commissioner of India, not least because of my own family links with India. In fact my father was born there – in Madras. It is a constant reminder to me of the closeness of the ties that bind so many of us with the sub-continent – ties that continue to grow stronger. That is something that I very much welcome and, as leader of the Conservative Party, wish to encourage and develop further. Of course, tonight’s event takes place against the backdrop of the military conflict that is raging in Afghanistan, a conflict in which our country is a fully committed coalition partner with the United States. Some two and a half weeks after the first bombing raids began it is worth reminding ourselves of our purpose and why it is so important that having started, we see it through.

    In our own country, in Northern Ireland, we have experienced thirty years of sustained terrorist violence and acts of cowardly evil. Hopefully, with the encouraging events of this week, we might now be able to look forward at last to a permanent end to violence there and a future for Northern Ireland based exclusively on democracy and consent.

    Yet nothing that we have been through here in any way prepared us for the scale of the atrocities that were carried out on 11th September in New York and Washington.

    Those attacks left over 7,000 people dead from over sixty countries. They included people of all religions– including Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims – and of none. They were the worst terrorist attacks ever perpetrated against our own country with hundreds of our fellow British citizens murdered. It must also rank as one of the worst terrorist outrages against countries such as Pakistan and India.
    They were attacks on us all and on the civilised values – democracy, freedom and the rule of law – that underpin our society.

    They could not go unpunished.

    Bin Laden and his Al Qu’ida network that planned and carried them out must be brought to justice, along with the Taleban regime that has harboured and sustained them.

    Let us be clear about one thing. This is not a war against Islam or the people of Afghanistan. It is a war against international terrorism, nothing more, nothing less. We must never allow Bin Laden to succeed in driving a wedge between Muslim countries and the west.

    Bin Laden and his supporters know no limits. There is no compromising with such fanatics. They simply have to be defeated.

    Some people argue that, yes, we must respond, but that the bombing has gone on for long enough and there should now be a pause – if only to allow essential humanitarian aid to get through to the Afghan people. I understand that view, but I cannot agree with it.

    Ending the humanitarian crisis is directly linked with military success. The biggest obstacle to delivering aid is the continued control of large parts of Afghanistan by the Taleban, who have intercepted aid, taxed it and sent some of it to market. For an effective aid programme to work the Taleban must fall. In its place there needs to be a broadly based government that is representative of the Afghan people and which will co-operate with the aid agencies. The window for that to happen is narrow, with most of the key passes into the country closed by the early New Year. So we must see the present action through.

    It is vital that this conflict is not allowed to sour relations between different communities here in Britain. All of us in public life have a responsibility to ensure that this does not happen.

    At the Conservative Conference a fortnight ago I said that, as Party Leader, I will be intolerant of those who are intolerant of others. I’ve demonstrated that already by the actions I have taken.

    I have also appointed Shailesh Vara as one of the Vice-Chairmen of the Conservative Party, Mohammed Riaz as my personal adviser on various race related issues, and Nirj Diva as my adviser on Asian issues in the European Parliament. Shailesh and Riaz were Conservative candidates at the last Election and Nirj is a Conservative MEP. All of them are first rate.

    I believe in a United Kingdom which is genuinely open and inclusive of all its citizens and in which racism and bigotry – of whatever kind – can have no place.

    Britain today is a diverse society, made up of many different groups, communities and cultural traditions. I believe that this is as a source of strength, providing our country with a richness of which we should all be proud.

    I want the United Kingdom to provide everybody with the same rights, the same obligations and the same levels of opportunity – a country where people are judged solely on their merits, whoever they are and wherever they come from.

    That is my view. It is also the clear and unequivocal position of the Conservative Party.

    It is a United Kingdom that respects differences, which enables us to hold on to the things that makes us distinctive but always allows us to come together as British. It is possible to be proud of your Asian roots, at the same time as being proud of your British heritage too. That is because whether we are Hindu or Sikh, Muslim or Christian, black, white or brown we are all as British as each other. It underpins our sense of being One Nation and the fact that the United Kingdom belongs to us all.

    And let us never forget that during the two world wars some five million soldiers from the sub-continent and the Afro-Caribbean countries fought side by side with British soldiers in the struggle for freedom. Many of them died. No – let us never forget.

    Tonight we are doing more than launching the latest edition of the Asian Who’s Who International. We are celebrating the fact that the story of British Asians is also one of the great British success stories of recent years. That is all the more impressive given the fact that so many British Asians came here with next to nothing. Many of those who were thrown out of Uganda in the 1972 – and I know some those present here tonight are in that category – had to leave literally with only the clothes they were wearing.

    Yet despite the handicaps and the obstacles businesses owned by the Asian community have prospered and employ many thousands of people.

    There is no doubt that you make an outstanding contribution to the strength, prosperity and success of the United Kingdom. And in so many aspects of our national life – business, the arts, the media and the professions – you play an increasingly prominent role.

    But I want your contribution to go much further. The blunt truth is we still have far too few British Asians, members of other ethnic communities, and for that matter, women actively involved in politics in our country. I want to encourage more of them into the mainstream of British political life.

    I appreciate the difficulties that there have been in the past. Political parties of all persuasions, not just the Conservative Party, have not always appeared attractive to the different ethnic groups in our society. That has begun to change. We have British Asians – Nirj Deva and Bashir Khanbhai as Conservative Members of the European Parliament. People like Narinda Saroop have done outstanding work for the Party over many years.

    We have come a long way. But I readily accept that we still have a long way to go. My aim is clear. It is to broaden the appeal of the Conservative Party for British Asians, and for members of all the different ethnic groups in Britain.

    There is no place, and never has been, in the Conservative Party for those who extol the virtues of a creed that demeans people on the basis of their ethnicity. There is no place for racism in the Conservative Party.

    I want the Conservative Party to reflect and represent the diversity of our national life. I want us to be a Party for all the people.

    That means attracting more Asians into the Conservative Party at all levels. I want British Asians to contribute to the major policy review that I launched earlier this week, to become involved in the constituencies, to get elected to Parliament, to serve in Conservative Governments and Cabinets and, yes, to lead our Party in the future.

    The Conservative Party has much to learn from the values that have underpinned your success – a belief in freedom, enterprise, tradition, education, individual responsibility, fulfilling our obligations to others and in public service. They are your values. They are Conservative values too.

    And let me make it abundantly clear. Under my leadership the Conservative Party will be open to everyone who shares our values.

  • Quentin Davies – 2001 Speech to the Ulster Unionist Party Conference

    Quentin Davies – 2001 Speech to the Ulster Unionist Party Conference

    The speech made by Quentin Davies, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in Belfast on 17 November 2001. This is the edited version released to the media.

    If one thing above all has struck me in the two months I have been doing this job it is the anxiety, the pessimism – I do not think it too much to say the despondency – of much of the Unionist community.

    So many people have said to me that they feel that things have moved inexorably against them, that the Peace Process has been a one-way street and that even a single IRA act of decommissioning does not change that.

    There is a very widespread impulse to discount any good news and – most painful of all for anyone who comes from England – a sense of betrayal – a feeling that their fellow citizens in the rest of the United Kingdom do not even regard them as such, and want nothing so much as to get shot of them as soon as possible.

    I am well aware that it is not the first time that such sentiments have been expressed in Ulster. I was struck by a passage in Thomas Hennessy’s excellent ‘History of Northern Ireland’, which I was reading the other day, in which Sir Richard Dawson Bates, then Minister for Home Affairs in Northern Ireland, said in 1938:

    ‘So long as we live, there will always be the danger of Home Rule or merging into the Free State. We will never get rid of it. One has only to go to England to see the extraordinary apathy towards us by people who should be our friends. We do not understand this apathy in England towards us …’

    If these sentiments have existed before, they have now returned with a vengeance. The thing that has caused me more pain than, I think, any other political comment that has ever been addressed to me, has been to be told several times that of course I care fundamentally much more about bombs in London or Birmingham, about blood being shed in England than about blood shed here.

    Well let me use this opportunity today to say with all the sincerity and conviction of which I am capable, that in my eyes Northern Ireland is in every sense just as much as part of our country as London or Lincolnshire where I come from, its inhabitants are every bit as precious to me and my colleagues and our responsibility for them is exactly and precisely the same.

    I know very well that it is not verbal analysis that will reassure people, it is only our deeds.

    So let me give you this commitment.

    Everything we do or say as the major Opposition party will be designed, whether directly or indirectly by exerting influence on the Government, to ensure that Northern Ireland can be, can continue to be, and can feel, a respected, a valued, and an equal part of the United Kingdom, and I hope increasingly a normalised and a prosperous part of our Kingdom.

  • Damian Green – 2001 Comments on the Education Bill

    Damian Green – 2001 Comments on the Education Bill

    The comments made by Damian Green, the then Shadow Education Secretary, on 22 November 2001.

    The Government will claim this Bill is deregulatory. This is flatly the opposite of the truth.

    It amounts to the biggest move yet towards the centralisation of decision-making in education.

    The Government is about to snuff out even more areas of independent activity in education. Under the guise of encouraging innovation in schools, the Bill will take power away from local government, from school governors and from headteachers, and keep that power back in Whitehall.

    I think this approach is exactly the opposite of what we need in our schools today. You cannot create a world-class education system if all power lies with the Secretary of State.

    If the Archangel Gabriel was available to be Secretary of State for Education and Skills, we still should not give him the powers that the current Secretary of State wants for herself in this Bill.

    What we need are motivated teachers, schools that can think for themselves, local authorities that can take their own decisions. We will get none of that from this Bill.

  • Michael Ancram – 2001 Speech to Conservative Women’s Conference

    Michael Ancram – 2001 Speech to Conservative Women’s Conference

    The speech made by Michael Ancram on 29 November 2001.

    May I start by saying what a pleasant surprise and a pleasure it is to be speaking to you this afternoon. I had thought that for the first time in four years I would not have the privilege of addressing you this year and the withdrawal symptoms were severe.

    But then fortune smiled on me, if not on you, and here I am.

    Of course my pleasure is somewhat tempered by your disappointment that I am not Iain. I know that Iain shares that disappointment – not that I am not him, but that he can’t be with you today. But we live in strange times when plans cannot be made very far in advance and when opportunities have to be grasped.

    In today’s frenetic scenario it is hard to catch a passing senior member of the administration in Washington. They are on the move all the time. Today and tomorrow that chance presented itself for the first time in months and I know you will agree that Ian had to grasp it.

    He has asked me to pass on his apologies and best wishes.

    It does however give me a chance to do something which I have been anxious to do. That is to thank you for the unstinting help and support you gave me throughout my three years as Party Chairman.

    They were not easy times, but your loyalty and your hard work and unfailing good humour were a tremendous strength. I say thank you to you from the bottom of my heart.

    As you know I set great store by you. I have always seen and acknowledged the women in our party as the bedrock of our organisation.

    You are the people who quite literally in many areas keep our party going, not just in raising funds but by being the face of the conservative party in the streets and the market places, on the doorsteps and increasingly on the telephones.

    You are the real workers, the lifeblood of our party, creating the momentum and the dynamism and the drive. I have no time for those who seek to detract from your efforts or who belittle your organisation.

    I know your value and your commitment and in me you will continue to find a champion and a friend.

    One of my greatest disappointments as Chairman was my failure to see more conservative women elected to Parliament.

    I know that if we are to present an acceptable face to the electorate it must be a representative face, representative of the world we live in where women outnumber men. We had so many able women on the candidates list, many of them in seats of which I had hopes, hopes which were sadly dashed. And there were many more equally able women who did not come forward because they did not feel that the party wanted them.

    I believe that this is one of the most important challenges facing us in the next year. There are no simple solutions but we must turn this around, and quickly. I am delighted with the appointments announced today.

    I must refer briefly to the election.

    I am deeply sorry that we could not deliver the comeback of which so many of us had dreamed and for which we had all worked so hard.

    We proved the opinion polls wrong by a factor of 50%. We achieved a slight swing to us from the previous election. A little more of both and we would have achieved the critical mass which would have seen us making serious inroads into our target seats. We fought under William Hague’s brave leadership a campaign of which we should never be ashamed.

    It was however sadly not to be.

    The truth was that we ran into the sands of apathy and the shoals of disinterest and disengagement. Too many of our own people were not motivated to come out to vote.

    The reasons were many and must be addressed. The effect was the lowest election turnout of my political life. 59% voted. The three main parties between them couldn’t muster 50% between them. We have a government elected by just 25% of the electorate.

    The result was bad for politics and bad for democracy. But above all it was bad for us. And that is what we now have to start to put right.

    We have to begin to re-engage the interest of the electorate – in politics, in the democratic process, but above all in us. The last two months have not been easy in this respect.

    The events of 11 September changed the currency of the political debate just at the moment when Iain was elected our leader. Normal politics would have been inappropriate. The national interest demanded bipartisanship in our response to the international terrorist threat.

    Iain’s measured, knowledgeable and responsible approach was absolutely right for the moment and I believe he gained great respect for it.

    But time is now going on, and while we will continue our support for the government on the international and defence fronts just so long as they remain resolute in their fight against terrorism, we will now return to the domestic political scene and the deteriorating situation over which they are so ineffectually presiding.

    Tony Blair may have been jetting the world offering our services. Here at home the services which matter, the public services have been going down the chute. While he preaches a new world order the order here is old. The tune and the words never change.

    On Tuesday, in his pre-Budget report, the Chancellor of the Exchequer repeated his promise to deliver improvements in our public services. He promised to throw more of our hard earned cash at them.

    The problem is that he has been making the same promise for the past four and a half years since Labour were elected. And every year he has broken that promise. We are told the money goes in, but nothing ever seems to come out.

    He is like some crazed gambling addict who believes that with just one more visit to the tables, just one more stake down, all will come good. Every year we are told that more of our money has been pumped in. Every year we are told that next year will be the year of delivery. Every year Gordon Brown is hailed by his admirers as a cross between a prophet and a miracle worker; and every year he gets it wrong.

    If it wasn’t serious it would be farcical. Year after year more and more of your money is thrown at the public services only to see them deteriorate. If this lot were running a public company in this way, there would be some pretty rigorous auditing going on.

    The truth is that across the board, in schools, in hospitals, in transport, the story of this Labour Government has been one of the steady decline in the quality of Britain’s public services.

    They claimed that things could only get better. The reality is that despite all the tax increases, even the Daily Mirror was forced to admit that “things have got considerably worse”.

    And under this Government they will only continue to get worse.

    Who can forget Tony Blair’s 1997 scare mongering plea to the voters that there were twenty-four hours to save the NHS? Try telling that to the demoralised Doctor, the overworked nurse or the patients lying on trolleys sometimes for more hours than that before they are even seen by a consultant.

    Remember Labour’s pledge to cut hospital waiting lists, attract more doctors and nurses into the health service and harness the best of the private sector to drive up standards of care.

    Four and a half years on the waiting list for the waiting list are still over 150,000 higher than it was in 1997. Cancer survival rates are still lower in Britain than they are in countries like France and Germany. Labour’s plans to involve the private sector are bogged down in confusion and union opposition.

    We face a 57,000 shortfall in the number of nurses by 2004. The number of Doctor vacancies has doubled in the past year alone. More GPs are leaving the profession than joining it.

    No wonder the Chairman of the BMA says “our morale has been driven to distressingly new depths”.

    The Government talks about recruitment. But it’s no good recruiting Doctors and Nurses if you can’t retain them. And they can’t.

    The other week Alan Milburn even went to Spain to try and recruit Doctors from among their surplus.

    Actually, come to think of it, that’s not a bad deal. We’ll have their Doctors and Spain can have Alan Milburn.

    Even the Labour Party Chairman was forced to admit this week that parts of the NHS are in a worse state now than they were in 1997.

    Twenty-four hours to save the NHS. Four and a half years of Labour to run the NHS into the ground. And they are now telling us that it will take 24 years to get it right. For heavens sake, we cant wait that long!

    Remember Tony Blair’s other proud boast. “It’s education, education, education”.

    Try telling that to the teachers who spend so much time dealing with Whitehall directives that they are unable to concentrate on teaching. Try telling that to the inner city parents who are forced to send their children to schools where discipline is so poor that classrooms are like war zones.

    And try telling that to the Tesco Store Manager who recently had to spend over £1 million on new recruits to bring them up to the numeracy standards needed to work the checkouts.

    Labour promised to cut class sizes, to recruit more teachers and raise standards. Yet secondary class sizes are now higher than at any time since 1978. Standards in maths for 11 year olds are falling.

    Nearly 60 per cent of trainee teachers either never make it into the classroom or leave within three years, while 80 per cent of teachers say that discipline has got worse in recent years.

    They make boasts about teacher recruitment. But it’s no good recruiting teachers if you can’t retain them. And they can’t.

    And Labour’s new big idea? More classroom assistants.

    Make no mistake. Classroom assistants can do a good job. But this has to be the first time ever that they are being recruited so that teachers can spend less time in the classroom and more time filling in forms.

    Education, education, education. Under Labour it’s falling standards, worse discipline and a teacher crisis.

    And remember the other boast two years ago – an integrated transport policy: “delivered”. Try telling that to the car drivers stuck on some of the most congested roads in Europe. And try telling that to the rail passengers last month whose forty- minute journey lasted six hours – longer than it actually takes to fly to the Middle East.

    Labour’s transport policy is in tatters. And which private sector company is now going to risk its own money to provide investment in transport when they look at the treatment of Railtrack? And which private investors – often pensioners and workers – will ever again put their money into public services when they now know that the Stephen Byers’s of this world will without warning not only whip the rug from under the value of their hard earned shares but will sneer at them for having invested in the first place.

    Stephen Byers deserves the Karl Marx award for services to outdated dogma. For the damage he has done to public services he deserves the sack.

    Britain is the fourth largest economy in the world, yet we have public services that would shame the third world. Our people are unable to receive the hospital treatment they need. Our children are failing to receive the education that will give them a proper chance in life. Our disintegrating transport system means that simply getting to work is a daily story of misery for millions of people.

    For the past four year and a half years Labour have tried to blame everybody else for their own failure to deliver. First it was us, then the doctors, the nurses the teachers – all of us at some stage dismissed as the “forces of conservatism”. Under this Government it is always somebody else’s fault.

    Yet four and a half years on Labour Ministers have nobody left to blame but themselves. This is Labour’s health service crisis. It is Labour’s education crisis. And it is Labour’s transport crisis. And who is now being forced to pick up the bill for Labour’s record of failure. You: the taxpayer. Because on Tuesday Gordon Brown signalled his clear intention to increase taxes yet again.

    The last times he did so over and over again by stealth. He pretended that it hadn’t happened; and it still hurt. This time he’s positively boasting about it. The hard-pressed taxpayer has been well and truly warned.

    So much for that other famous pledge: “we have no plans to increase tax at all”.

    Tuesday was the day when the veneer of New Labour was finally stripped away.

    And it was the day when Labour finally abandoned any pretence that it was serious about the reform of our public services.

    Everybody wants to see investment going into our public services. But it should be investment that delivers results and doesn’t simply disappear down a black hole. Without genuine reform we will never bring about the improvements that people and expect and they will continue to have to put up with public services that shame our country.

    Tony Blair tries to tell us that there is only one choice – between tax cuts or increased investment.

    There is indeed a choice before us – but it is not that one. It is this.

    We can continue down the same road of taxing ever more heavily in order to plough ever more money to pay for unreformed services. Or we can combine a low tax, wealth-creating economy with genuine public service reform.

    Labour refuse to engage in reform because they remain dogmatically wedded to systems that were created in different circumstances to suit different needs. They remain the servants of the vested interests that pay their political bills.

    Conservatives must become the champions of world-class public services.

    We must be open to new thinking and new ideas that bring practical and pragmatic solutions to the challenges we face.

    We need to bring, where appropriate, the best of British enterprise and innovation that is found in the private and voluntary sectors into the running of our public services.

    We must listen to those who run our public services as well as those who use them.

    We need to learn from other countries, such as in Europe, where public services are run so much better. Liam Fox has already begun his rounds on health and his findings are significant.

    We need to offer people genuine diversity and choice.

    And we need to offer the British people the choice of a party that not only promises to deliver better public services but one that actually delivers better public services. That will be the number one priority for the Conservative Party over the next four years.

    Labour came to power promising to restore people’s faith in politics. Yet four and a half years on people’s faith in politics is so low that as I have pointed out at the General Election the number of voters staying at home was greater than the number who turned out to vote for the winning party.

    We have seen how the Government has increasingly sidelined and marginalized Parliament with Ministers taking every opportunity to make announcements anywhere but the House of Commons.

    We have seen a Prime Minister demonstrate such a low regard for Parliament that one of his first acts was to cut down the number of times he could be questioned there.

    We have seen how every reform that the Government has introduced has been designed with one objective – to increase the power of the Executive and weaken effective scrutiny of its decisions.

    And we have seen the culture of spin with Stephen Byers’s Special Adviser sending an e-mail round her Department, as the planes were crashing into the twin towers, suggesting that it might be a very good day “for burying bad news” and keeping her job.

    The worst thing is that none of us is the least bit surprised by it and even less so when on Tuesday Stephen Byers and Moore tried exactly the same tactic and sought to bury the minutes of his meeting with Railtrack by releasing them four minutes into the Chancellor’s pre-Budget Statement.

    I’ve now got to the stage that every time a big story breaks I find myself looking for the bad news which Stephen Byers will inevitably be trying to bury behind it. In terms of work rate he puts most undertakers to shame.

    What utter contempt they show for Parliament and the British people who put them there.

    These are the realities facing us and facing the British people as a whole. We need to turn them round and we need to turn them round fast. And we will only do that by showing that we ourselves have changed.

    We need to show as we develop our policies that we understand the real problems which confront people in their own lives and that we really care about them. We need to show that we mind about the priorities, the failures of those services upon which people have come to depend for their quality of life, but which are now personally failing them. We need too to show that we care about our country and that we will stand up for her interests and those of her citizens.

    We will fight the covert sell-out of our fellow citizens in Gibraltar upon which the Government is engaged.

    We will fight the hand wringing and waffle which is the hallmark of the government’s response to the growing catastrophe in Zimbabwe and we will demand action.

    We will fight the government’s inaction over our plane-spotters stuck in Greek jails.

    We will fight the headlong rush into a European superstate which was the import of Blair’s speech last Friday and we will offer a genuine alternative.

    We are faced by a government which seems hell bent on giving our country and its interests away, which has no pride in our past and no confidence in our future and which prefers surrender to resistance and abdication to responsible action.

    We must change all that. There can be no denying that we have a long and hard haul ahead. We start from a basis of indifference and disinterest.

    There is not so much hostility out there, only disengagement. We need to rekindle the interest, become interesting ourselves, and get ourselves out onto the doorsteps.

    In Iain Duncan Smith we have a leader who has already shown us a steady and clear command and who will see us through this long haul. I am honoured to be his deputy.

    He is growing in public stature with every day that passes and he will be a strong, clear and powerful leader in the months and years ahead. He was an excellent choice and we must give him all the support we can muster.

    That way lies the road to victory at the next election. The going will not be easy. But we are more than ready for the task. Our greatest enemy will be our own lack of faith in ourselves, our own lack of confidence. With confidence we can create the environment within which we can and will win.

    There can be no room for fainthearts on this journey. They will only hold us back. But none of you are fainthearted. You are the foundations upon which our victory will be built.

    So go back from here to your constituencies. Tell them that the dog days are over. Tell them the fight is on again. Tell them that the enemy is in our sights again.

    And tell them that with them with us we can win.

  • Iain Duncan Smith – 2001 Speech to the American Enterprise Institute

    Iain Duncan Smith – 2001 Speech to the American Enterprise Institute

    The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative MP for Chingford and then Leader of the Conservative Party, in Washington DC, the United States, on 30 November 2001.

    Nothing, of course, will ever remove from our memories the horrific attacks – in this city and in New York – that took place on September 11. It is still almost impossible to comprehend what happened on that day, or to understand the hate that could motivate men to carry out such evil deeds. The grief felt throughout the United Kingdom on that day was real and heartfelt.

    They were attacks on Britain’s staunchest ally and Britain’s greatest friend. Yet they were attacks on us all and on the shared values that we hold dear. Over 4,000 people were brutally murdered from over 80 countries. In terms of loss of life, they were the worst terrorist outrages in British history too. So my message is simple – we are in this together.

    If one thing has stood out since September 11, however, it has been the indomitable spirit of the American people never to bend the knee to terrorism. The response of your nation, under fire, has demonstrated to the whole world why the spirit of freedom and democracy will always triumph over evil and terror. And the leadership given by President Bush and others, such as Rudolph Guiliani, has been quite outstanding.

    Such an atrocity could not go ignored or unpunished. The guilt of Bin Laden, and the Taliban regime that harboured him, was beyond any reasonable doubt. Having been shown some of the intelligence by the Prime Minister, I am quite clear that they are guilty as charged. That is why the British Government, with the backing of my Party, was right to give its full support to the President in taking whatever course of action he felt appropriate.

    Our aims in Afghanistan have been clear all along. The removal of the Taliban regime and its replacement by a more broadly-based government, bringing Bin Laden to justice and dismantling his Al-Qa’eda terrorist network.

    The first of these – the removal of the Taliban – is now virtually assured. UN sponsored talks are currently taking place about the formation of a new Government. Hopefully the shape of that Government will emerge quickly so that some stability can at last be brought to a people who have suffered so much from a succession of tyrannical regimes.

    And the net is closing in on Bin Laden. The professionalism of our Armed Forces – American and British – will ensure that either he is brought to justice or that justice is brought to him.

    The success that has been achieved in recent weeks is a vindication of the strategy pursued by the international coalition, with the United States at its head. We must see it through to the finish and not be distracted by those who, for whatever reason, call for an end to the bombing before our task is properly completed.

    Yet, while the war in Afghanistan might just be beginning to have an end in sight, the war against terrorism is emphatically not over. It must go on.

    You have called this particular part of the Conference “Confronting the Terrorists”. To me, that encapsulates neatly what I believe to be the overriding joint purpose of our two countries, not just in Afghanistan, but wherever terrorism rears its evil head or finds sanctuary.

    We in the United Kingdom have had to face terrorism for too long. Thousands of people have died as a result – enough is enough. If September 11 told us one thing, it is that terrorism today knows no limits. There is no weapon they will not use, and no life they are not prepared to take. We need to realise that these people are fanatics who will stop at nothing. That is why we have to stop them. If we fail to maintain the pressure on terrorism everywhere, then we are all at risk.

    Winning the war against terrorism requires us to fight it on all fronts. It means tackling the terrorist organisations direct. It means drying up their sources of finance. It means tackling the links between terrorism and organised crime. And it means dealing with those rogue states that for too long have been able to get away with harbouring terrorists and using them for their own twisted purposes.

    A clear lesson is that the days of the safe havens are over. We are no longer prepared to tolerate your activities. That goes for Afghanistan, just as it should for other countries we know, and can show, are involved in international terrorism. Where these states are unwilling to take effective action against terrorism they must be prepared to face a determined response from the wider international community – and I hope that the United Kingdom will continue to be at the forefront of that response.

    As Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, made absolutely clear just over a fortnight ago: ‘we are in this for the long haul’.

    And certainly I agree with President Bush when he says that there can be no further justification for the continuing Iraqi failing to abide by the Gulf War ceasefire obligations to allow UN inspectors back into the country to monitor its weapons of mass destruction. As Richard Butler has made clear, Iraq has used the three years since UNSCOM was kicked out to build up its arsenal.

    The events of September 11 also shattered one of the post-Cold War illusions that we no longer faced any direct threats. In fact the threats today are many and more varied than ever before – from the car bomber to the rogue state with ever more powerful weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, chemical or biological. Nobody can be in any doubt that if Bin Laden had been able to lay his hands on a nuclear device then he would not have used it.

    As I have said before, proving one threat does not disprove another. And against many of these threats we are currently literally defenceless. That is particularly the case when it comes to ballistic missiles. It makes them the weapon of choice for the terrorist or rogue state bent on blackmail or carnage.

    Traditional methods of arms control will not solve the problem. Those countries, like Iraq, are the least likely to observe treaties. Stemming the flow of military technology to these countries might delay their ability to develop weapons of mass destruction but we cannot guarantee that it will halt it. Preventative defence, seeking to bring these countries within the family of civilised nations, clearly has a part to play, though in a number of cases we are a long way from that.

    That is why it is essential for us to look collectively at new ways of strengthening our defences. In this context I reiterate my Party’s backing for President Bush’s plans for the development of an effective ballistic missile defence shield – for the United States and her allies – in which the United Kingdom plays a full role.

    Far from holding back on missile defence, I believe that the events of September 11 have made it all the more important to press ahead.

    Confronting the terrorists must mean all terrorists. As far as I, and the Conservative Party, is concerned terrorism is indivisible. What happened in the United States is the same as that which has been carried out in the United Kingdom, and in particular in Northern Ireland. The only difference is scale. Even then we should never forget that some 3,600 people have lost their lives in terrorist violence associated with Northern Ireland. As Northern Ireland’s First Minister, David Trimble, and I argued last week, there is no moral difference whatever between those who planned and carried out the attacks on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers or those who planned and carried out Enniskillen, Omagh, Greysteel and countless other atrocities over 30 years.

    Nor is there any difference between the illicit trade in drugs that helps to finance the terrorist operations of Al-Qa’eda and the illicit trade in drugs that sustains the activities of Republican and Loyalist Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland.

    Over the years the IRA has clearly established links with international terrorist organisations. Much of its weaponry was supplied courtesy of Colonel Gaddafi. In August, three suspected IRA members were apprehended in Colombia suspected of collaborating with the narco-terrorist group FARC. The IRA is in many respects the prototype for international terror groups and the organisation from which they draw inspiration.

    And even with the current ‘ceasefires’, and the IRA act of decommissioning, the terrorist threat from dissident groups remains high. So we need to continue to confront the domestic terrorist threat in the United Kingdom.

    When Gerry Adams said in New York recently, ‘those who support us know the difference between what’s been happening in Ireland and what happened in this city on September 11′ – he is wrong – there should be no equivocation about our response to terror.

    We agree that because a person has a violent past, it does not mean they cannot have a future if they renounce violence completely. We want the peace process to succeed. Yet we should never fall into the trap of those who would claim there are different categories of terrorist or, worse still, ‘good terrorists’ and ‘bad terrorists’. Do that and we are a short step from giving legitimacy to all terrorist violence. The dead of the United Kingdom are testament to that.

    This will not be an easy road – it will not be a quick journey – but the United States and Britain have been together for too long to weaken now. Together in defence of freedom.

    We must be strong in the face of tragedy – relentless in the pursuit of evil – resolute in the fight and just in victory.

  • Timothy Kirkhope – 2001 Speech on Europe After 9/11

    Timothy Kirkhope – 2001 Speech on Europe After 9/11

    The speech made by Timothy Kirkhope MEP on 30 November 2001.

    It is now a truism to say that the atrocities of 11 September were a momentous event. Whether the current “fight against terrorism” ranks alongside the Gulf War or the Second World War is an academic question: what matters is that the first war of the new century is the issue of the moment.

    Like the Second World War, the fight against terrorism is having as much impact on the “home front” as it does on the “international front”. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Home Secretary is playing as important a role in the conflict as the Foreign Secretary. When terrorists are the enemy, rather than states and when anthrax attacks on citizens are as much of a possibility as sniper attacks on soldiers, home affairs becomes as important as foreign affairs.

    Therefore, the central question for Justice and Home Affairs ministers and spokesmen during this crisis is: ‘Should the principles that govern our actions be irrevocably and permanently changed by this crisis, or should they just be adapted for the duration of the present conflict? Let me give a few examples:

    The UK Government has recently brought in retrospective legislation to deter anthrax hoaxers with penalties of up to seven years in prison. This is the first time in modern history that legislation has taken effect before being approved by the House of Commons. This law will be applied retrospectively to those who commit anthrax hoaxes between Sunday 21 October and the date Parliament approves the legislation. Naturally, I am pleased that David Blunkett has acted against anthrax hoaxers, but the precedent this legislation sets worries me. Essentially, the aim of the legislation is laudable, but the procedure used to implement must be questionable.

    Secondly, the European Parliament is united in a wish to prevent terrorist groups from funding their activities from the proceeds of criminal activities such as drug smuggling. But there are worries that the principle of client confidentiality between lawyers and clients could be severely undermined by the money laundering directive proposed by the European Council. The original wording of the directive would have compelled lawyers to alert the authorities if they had “reason to believe” that their client was seeking advice for money laundering purposes. Whilst our Parliament fully agreed that client confidentiality is secondary if a lawyer “knows” about money laundering activities, the catchall “or has reason to believe” would have been is a serious blow to an important legal principle apart from its unclear meaning.

    Then there is freedom of speech for elected representatives. The Chief Whip for the Labour Party in the UK responded to a Labour Member of Parliament calling for greater United Nations involvement in the fight against terrorism: “It was people like you who appeased Hitler in 1938!” As Chief Whip of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, I feel that in this case the Labour Party is mistaking constructive criticism for outright opposition. The Labour movement is known to have a long history of pacifism that should not be confused with support for Osama bin Laden.

    These examples illustrate how the fight against terrorism has changed the way in which we conduct Home Affairs. There are other questions including whether traditional freedom of movement should be limited in the European Union; whether freedom of association should also be restricted; and whether the European Convention of Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights should be curtailed in the aftermath of 11 September. We need to think carefully before we act decisively and permanently.

  • Iain Duncan Smith – 2001 Speech on Care Homes

    Iain Duncan Smith – 2001 Speech on Care Homes

    The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, on 12 December 2001.

    Thank you all for coming here today. Improving our public services is at the heart of my policy agenda, and improving the way in which we treat the sick and elderly is my personal priority.

    It is becoming clearer with every day that Labour’s mismanagement of the NHS has plunged both the care of the elderly, and care homes in particular, into crisis.

    It is clear to anyone with any common sense that a thriving care home sector is pivotal to the overall well-being of the health service. There are patients lying in hospital who are fit enough to be discharged, but remain in hospital solely because there is nowhere to discharge them to.

    And why is this the case? Because under Labour, a combination of ineptitude and mismanagement has seen the closure of almost 50,000 care home beds since 1997. At any one time, over 6,000 hospital beds are occupied by patients whose discharge has been delayed. The Department of Health state that 680,000 patients have their discharges delayed every year.

    That patients remain in hospital when they could – and should – be elsewhere means that they occupy, through no fault of their own, precious beds that would otherwise be given to patients requiring operations. No wonder the waiting lists remain stubbornly high: Not only is there a queue to get into hospital, but Labour have now brought us the queue to get out of the hospital.

    It speaks volumes about their approach to health more generally. They will never deliver necessary reform because they have a deep-rooted antipathy towards private providers.

    The Government seems unable to understand that the system of healthcare in this country needs reform.

    They talk about working with the private sector, but here is an area in which there is a longstanding relationship between the public and private sectors, and the Government is making a mess of it.

    Massive over-regulation, and a cavalier disregard for the basic economics of operating care homes, have seen care homes close at an alarming rate. Homes have faced financial ruin because of the extra costs imposed as a result of the Care Standards Act. Homes that cannot comply with the new regulations have had to close, and the number of available places will continue to diminish at an alarming rate. It is widely known that the costs of a place in a local authority home can be significantly higher than those in privately-run homes.

    No wonder we have a situation where in some health trusts, such as Brent and Harrow or North & Mid Hampshire, over 18% of their beds are blocked.

    Labour seem to have forgotten that ‘care’ is about treating people with the dignity to which they are naturally entitled, and not about quibbling over square inches and room sizes. The nature of a person’s care and treatment must be determined by their need, not by the administrative convenience of the Labour Party.

    Labour’s only solution is to spend more money. But they will do so without reforming the system: indeed they will make it worse through constant interference from the centre. We will all pay more, but get less.

    Health care in Britain, and long term care in particular, needs fresh thinking, and it is that fresh thinking that the Conservative Party is going to provide. The crisis in the care homes sector, and its implications for the care of the elderly generally, is one of our top priorities.

    Unlike Labour, we are not bound by dogma, nor will we handcuff ourselves to a status quo which becomes daily more indefensible. We are free to find solutions which address the real problems people face, not the fantasy view of the NHS which ministers seem to have. We need solutions which deliver better care, not more problems.

    I sincerely hope that by working with the experts gathered here today, we will be able to work together for the benefit of everyone who relies on the NHS and social services.