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Foreign Affairs and Defence

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), who over many years has illuminated the House with forceful thought on these questions. I hope that he and some of the other defence experts who have spoken are listened to, because, as I shall seek to argue, we need some serious new strategic thinking. First, let me pay tribute to the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), the hon. Members for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) and for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) for their remarkable, warm, witty, passionate and lovely speeches. They reminded me of my first time 16 years ago. Frankly, I am as excited and nervous now as I was then. We have heard from hon. Members who will make a big contribution to the House of Commons. Before I focus on Afghanistan and NATO, I want to invite the House to consider that the Prime Minister, unfortunately, misled the House yesterday—inadvertently, I am sure. He said, in response to a question of mine, that""Labour's allies in the European Parliament"" include""the Self Defence of the Republic of Poland party, whose leader, Andrzej Lepper, said that""'Hitler had a really good programme'."—[Official Report, 25 May 2010; Vol. 510, c. 48.]" While we have been sitting today, I have received an e-mail from Dr Rafal Pankowski, the expert on these matters in Warsaw, saying:""Did he really say that? I find it incredible the British PM could have shot himself in the foot in this way. Self-Defence as such is no longer in the"" European Parliament,""but its surviving leading ex-member, (Ryszard Czarnecki) is in the ECR Group!"" For the benefit of Members, the ECR group is, of course, the Conservative-created European parliamentary group, the European Conservatives and Reformists. So, there we have the Prime Minister, inadvertently I am sure, misleading the House because he is relying on party propaganda. He has not yet adjusted to the fact that he is the Prime Minister of our nation and must be absolutely accurate in what he says. Let me quote another sentence from yesterday's Loyal Address debate. When talking about Afghanistan, the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) said""I…can barely stop myself crying out, 'Enough. No more. Bring them home.' I know that we cannot overnight abandon commitments to allies and the Afghans themselves, but I urge my right hon. Friends to scale back our aims realistically and bring our young soldiers home with all due speed."—[Official Report, 25 May 2010; Vol. 510, c. 36.]" I have for several years sat and listened to the tributes to the dead and fallen, weeping internally, as many Members have. I think again and again of a poem of Siegfried Sassoon, which I have altered slightly:""'Good-morning; good-morning!' the General said""When we met him last week on our way to the line.""Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,""And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.""'He's a cheery old card,' grunted Harry to Jack""As they slogged up to Helmand with rifle and pack.""But he did for them both by his plan of attack.""