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Column 1058
liked to sign it but did not? Or would they, perhaps, be those of an acolyte of the Leader of the Opposition, tired of having his economics corrected all the time?"Nor",
I read in The Independent on Sunday,
"is his relationship with Neil Kinnock close, the Labour leader realising that his Shadow Chancellor does not admire his grasp of economics."
That must be the understatement of the year. Whatever the truth may be about the conspiracy against the right hon. and learned Gentleman, he has been seriously wounded by it. He does not have the confidence of his own party, so how can he expect to have the confidence of the nation?
Let me now turn to the hon. Member for Derby, South, the junior partner in this Bearnaise sauce circuit around the City. She likes to pose as a paragon of fiscal virtue. I hope that this is not an indelicate subject to raise in the House, but this is a lady with a past--a very disreputable past. She used to be a socialist. That is no longer fashionable, so she denies it. She used to be very left wing. Ten years ago, she would have been the scourge of the policies that she now espouses. In the 1981 contest for the Labour party leadership, she supported the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). [ Hon. Members-- : "Oh!"] In 1980, this great supporter of the European Community wrote in Tribune about the European Community where she described it as
"This selfish, greedy, little clique of countries"
and declared :
"none of the arguments for staying in the European Community can be sustained."
That is the same hon. Member who now lets Mr. Delors write her scripts. She is standing on her head on most of the issues that--
Mrs. Beckett : A couple of things have happened in the meantime that the Minister appears not to have noticed. First, we had a referendum on the European Community which was won by those people who wished to remain in the Community. Secondly, in the 1983 election campaign, the Labour party put a specific option before the country--that we should not remain in the Community. That option was rejected. I am a democrat. I accept the decision of the country. It appears that the Conservative party voted for the European Community and for the Single European Act but that it now wishes that it had not done so.
Mr. Maples : What intellectual rigour, what consistency of principle that can be so easily undermined. I suspect that it is the sniff of office, not the 1983 election defeat, that has brought about the change.
The hon. Lady is also the originator of Beckett's law, which is in tatters. She says one thing ; the shadow Cabinet does another. We have already seen a few of the contradictions. The hon. Lady has no credibility and, apparently, no authority within the shadow Cabinet. She has got a £35 billion millstone round her neck and it is going to sink her. After the election, when the Labour party is in opposition, her job will be to run the shadow Chancellor's campaign for leadership of the Labour party.
I do not intend to dwell on the position of the Leader of the Opposition. He has changed his mind not just about a couple of things but about everything that he ever believed in. He used to be a famous left-wing firebrand. He has changed his mind about nuclear disarmament, nationalisation, Europe and even the monarchy.
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Mr. Graham : Will the Minister give way?Mr. Maples : No. I am not giving way to anybody else. There are only three minutes of the debate left.
It is difficult to take seriously anything that the Leader of the Opposition says. At the ad-men's bidding, he has given up the principles for which he went into politics and which he has held all his life. It shows through and is pretty shallow. The inflation record of the Labour party when in government was the worst in our history and the worst in the industrialised world. The Labour party has learnt nothing since then. It has no policy on inflation. It refuses to acknowledge that interest rates are the key to controlling inflation--in the words of the Labour party's own leader, when asked what Labour would do to control inflation, "We don't know." The Labour party has had a sudden, opportunistic conversion to the exchange rate mechanism, but how can we believe its sincerity now when for years it castigated the very idea of Europe and when the whole shadow Cabinet voted against the Single European Act only five years ago? The Labour party has invested heavily in selling its new-found respectability to the City, only to have its policies comprehensively rubbished by City commentators. Labour would have had a massive public spending programme which inevitably would mean higher taxes. Beckett's law is in tatters, contradicted twice in a year by her own boss, the shadow Chancellor. If the shadow Chancellor does not have the confidence of his own parliamentary party, how can he expect to get the confidence of the country?
The Labour party is led by a man whose desperate thirst for office has led him to change his mind on everything he ever believed in, even the monarchy. He is the greatest imposter of them all. Labour has no policies on inflation and no credibility. It is running on the biggest false prospectus since the South Sea bubble and it will be rumbled by the electorate for its opportunism and insincerity. Question put, That the amendment be made :--
The House divided : Ayes 188, Noes 324.
Division No. 100] [10 pm
AYES
Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)
Allen, Graham
Anderson, Donald
Archer, Rt Hon Peter
Armstrong, Hilary
Ashley, Rt Hon Jack
Ashton, Joe
Banks, Tony (Newham NW)
Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)
Barron, Kevin
Battle, John
Beckett, Margaret
Bell, Stuart
Benn, Rt Hon Tony
Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)
Benton, Joseph
Bidwell, Sydney
Blair, Tony
Boateng, Paul
Boyes, Roland
Bradley, Keith
Bray, Dr Jeremy
Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)
Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)
Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)
Callaghan, Jim
Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)
Campbell-Savours, D. N.
Canavan, Dennis
Clark, Dr David (S Shields)
Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)
Clelland, David
Clwyd, Mrs Ann
Cohen, Harry
Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
Cook, Robin (Livingston)
Corbett, Robin
Corbyn, Jeremy
Cousins, Jim
Crowther, Stan
Cryer, Bob
Cunliffe, Lawrence
Cunningham, Dr John
Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)
Dewar, Donald
Dixon, Don
Dobson, Frank
Duffy, Sir A. E. P.
Dunnachie, Jimmy
Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth
Eadie, Alexander
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Edwards, HuwEnright, Derek
Evans, John (St Helens N)
Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)
Fatchett, Derek
Faulds, Andrew
Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Fisher, Mark
Flannery, Martin
Flynn, Paul
Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Foster, Derek
Foulkes, George
Fraser, John
Fyfe, Maria
Galloway, George
Garrett, John (Norwich South)
Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John
Godman, Dr Norman A.
Golding, Mrs Llin
Gould, Bryan
Graham, Thomas
Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)
Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)
Grocott, Bruce
Hain, Peter
Hardy, Peter
Harman, Ms Harriet
Haynes, Frank
Heal, Mrs Sylvia
Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Henderson, Doug
Hinchliffe, David
Hoey, Kate (Vauxhall)
Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)
Hood, Jimmy
Howarth, George (Knowsley N)
Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)
Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)
Hoyle, Doug
Hughes, John (Coventry NE)
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Hughes, Roy (Newport E)
Ingram, Adam
Janner, Greville
Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)
Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)
Kilfoyle, Peter
Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil
Kumar, Dr. Ashok
Lambie, David
Lamond, James
Leadbitter, Ted
Lewis, Terry
Litherland, Robert
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)
Lofthouse, Geoffrey
Loyden, Eddie
McAllion, John
McAvoy, Thomas
McCartney, Ian
Macdonald, Calum A.
McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)
McLeish, Henry
McMaster, Gordon
McNamara, Kevin
Madden, Max
Mahon, Mrs Alice
Marek, Dr John
Marshall, David (Shettleston)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)
Maxton, John
Meacher, Michael
Meale, Alan
Michael, Alun
Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)
Morgan, Rhodri
Morley, Elliot
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Mowlam, Marjorie
Mullin, Chris
Murphy, Paul
Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon
O'Brien, William
O'Hara, Edward
O'Neill, Martin
Parry, Robert
Pendry, Tom
Powell, Ray (Ogmore)
Prescott, John
Primarolo, Dawn
Quin, Ms Joyce
Radice, Giles
Randall, Stuart
Redmond, Martin
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn
Robertson, George
Rogers, Allan
Rooney, Terence
Rowlands, Ted
Ruddock, Joan
Sedgemore, Brian
Sheerman, Barry
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Shore, Rt Hon Peter
Short, Clare
Skinner, Dennis
Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)
Smith, C. (Isl'ton & F'bury)
Smith, Rt Hon J. (Monk'ds E)
Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)
Soley, Clive
Spearing, Nigel
Steinberg, Gerry
Stott, Roger
Strang, Gavin
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)
Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis
Turner, Dennis
Vaz, Keith
Walley, Joan
Wardell, Gareth (Gower)
Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)
Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)
Williams, Rt Hon Alan
Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)
Wilson, Brian
Winnick, David
Wise, Mrs Audrey
Worthington, Tony
Wray, Jimmy
Tellers for the Ayes :
Mr. Jack Thompson and
Mr. Eric Illsley.
NOES
Adley, Robert
Aitken, Jonathan
Alexander, Richard
Alison, Rt Hon Michael
Allason, Rupert
Alton, David
Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Amess, David
Amos, Alan
Arbuthnot, James
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Arnold, Sir Thomas
Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy
Aspinwall, Jack
Atkins, Robert
Atkinson, David
Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)
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