Duff-Cooper Votes Against Government

Northern Advocate, 9 May 1940, Page 5

Duff-Cooper Votes Against Government

(Received 2 p.m.) v . LONDON, May 8. The former First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr A. Duff-Cooper), in the House of Commons debate, said: “I will vote against the Government. “This is not a time when any man has the right to wash his hands like Fontius Pilate and take neither side.” He added that it would be far better not to have a division.' “I had hoped,” he said, “that the Government would be sufficiently impressed by the debate to make some drastic reforms, urgently needed.” New Churchill Post. Discussing Mr Churchill’s new position, Mr Duff-Cooper said: “It is fundamentally unwise to put one Service Minister in a superior position to the others. “How can a dispute between two departments be referred to an arbiter who is the head of one of them?” Referring to Italy, he said: “I am very sorry at the Hemal of the report that our Ambassador has been sent to Signor Mussolini with a stern message. “It is over three weeks since Count Orandi said that Italy could not long rc main an observer. “If a man of such importance makes a statement, our Ambassador should go to Signor Mussolini and ask the meaning of the statement (Loud cheers). Scathing Criticism in U.S. “We should send a leading statesman to the Balkans and tell them that their salvation lies in co-operation with Britain and France.” Sir Stafford Cripps (Labour—Bristol) said: “I found in the United States nothing but scathing criticism of tin; British Government. Here there is no conviction of success, only doubt, despondency and uncertainty. “I am certain that Mr Churchill intended to risk surface vessels as well as submarines in Norway, but there was a change of policy, influenced perhaps by fears that the loss of capital ships might bring in Mussolini.”