The Lynskey Report debate was too late for me to
mention it last week, but it already seems old history.. Not very much was said in It that was helpful, and the view that the debate might well have ended after the opening speeches was, I think, widely held. Mr. Belcher's own speech was well conceived and admirably delivered. His dignity and courage secured him general sympathy, and there were many Members who felt that his faults would have been sufficiently expiated by his resignation of his Ministerial post. It was, after all, as a Minister, not as a Member, that he was at fault, and though there may be superficial logic in the contention that if a man is not fit to be a Minister he is not fit to be a Member, it struck a note of rather undue harshness in this particular case. The most surprising feature of the debate was Lord Winterton's decision to read out a grossly impertinent letter he had received from a Member who was expelled from the House a year or two ago.
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