The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

Category: 2010-2014

  • Sir John Major’s Speech at the Conservative Middle East Council Dinner – 16 June 2010

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech at the Conservative Middle East Council Dinner, held at Claridge’s Ballroom on Wednesday 16th June 2010.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Your Excellencies, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,

    Delighted to be here this evening. As I look around this gathering, I see new Ministers who face a herculean task, and old colleagues like Dennis Walters, Founder of this Council. I also see my old friend, Ken Clarke, who I am delighted to see back in Government. And, above all, distinguished Ambassadors representing our friends and allies in the Middle East. It is good to see you all.

    These days, I travel for almost six months a year. I marvel at the growth in the Middle East. I see the huge opportunities that are still to come. But, too often, I am told on my travels: “We see the French, the Germans, the Chinese – where are the British?”. I am delighted David Cameron and William Hague have re-stated our commitment to the wider region. We must never allow old friends to become distant friends.

    First, a warning: all over the world Governments have their own cautious language when engaged in diplomacy. Often what is not said is as important – if not more so – than what is said.

    Tonight you will need no interpretive skills: I speak solely for myself, and having the freedom to say exactly what I think, in the way that I wish, is one of the delights of not being in Government.

    Iraq

    When Iraq attacked Kuwait in 1990 – without cause or justification – the case for war was clear-cut. An innocent country was invaded and needed liberation. And when it was over we had a further responsibility: to protect the Kurds from genocide.

    The second Iraq War was very different.

    Before it began, I made my reservations public but supported the war – because I believed what the then Prime Minister told us about weapons of mass destruction. When I was Prime Minister, everything I said in public was factually rock solid. I assumed that principle still applied. But I was wrong. It now seems there was little justification for the bellicose case for war that was presented. I was not alone in being misled. So was the Conservative Party. So was the United Kingdom.

    Today that war looks like folly. The defence of it has shrunk to the claim that Saddam Hussein was a bad man, who mistreated his nation, and the world is better off without him.

    That is true. But others are bad, too – and mistreat their nations – yet we don’t invade their countries or bomb them from 30,000 feet. It may be that the Labour Government acted in good faith. Judgement on that can be left to history.

    But, I observe now – there are lessons: war should be the last resort, entered into only when circumstances compel it. And secondly: we now have on-going responsibilities to help rebuild Iraq that we cannot ignore.

    Afghanistan

    We have now been at war in Afghanistan for eight years – with no sign of an ending. Inevitably there is war weariness – made worse by the depressing rise in casualties. Poor political direction has dogged this mission from the outset. The Labour Government hoped “not a shot would be fired” but 298 British dead mock that naivety. For too long, troops in the field were ill-equipped: that, thankfully, is at last corrected and I hope they now will have all the support they need – in action and on their return home.

    Afghanistan is not a war that can easily be “won”, but nor can it be ignored: we are bound to it by necessity.

    And it is easy to see why.

    The war has spread into Pakistan – a Western ally and a nuclear power where Taleban and Jihadist influence has been growing.

    The Afghanistan campaign is now, arguably, not one, but several intertwined conflicts including a power struggle between Jihadists and the Pakistan Government.

    As the conflict becomes more messy and intractable, it is understandable that some feel we should bring the troops home – as Canada and the Netherlands plan to do in 2011.

    But not yet. Too much is at stake. We need patience and commitment for what could yet be a long military and civil campaign: the alternative is to lose the struggle, boost terror, undermine American and British prestige, and place Pakistan at risk. We did not seek this war, but we cannot – either morally or safely – walk away from it.

    The best exit strategy is victory. If that is unobtainable – diplomacy. We may yet have to talk to the Taliban.

    Arab-Israel

    The Arab/Israeli dispute colours the view of the Middle East. It spills beyond its own borders and has scarred politics for decades. And is it not absurd that we know the two-State solution we seek, but cannot turn it into reality? Morality, as well as practicality, says we need a solution.

    After several decades, a bilateral negotiated settlement is still far away: many wonder if it will ever be possible. Attempts at incremental agreements – “confidence building” in the jargon – have failed again and again. Peace negotiations resemble nothing so much as the mating of the Black Widow Spider. Once the dance is over, death and destruction inevitably follow. How often we have seen that, and how damaging it is.

    The present situation is close to stalemate. Palestinians are split. Secular Fatah control the West Bank. Islamic Hamas rule in Gaza. Hamas deny the right of Israel to even exist. They will not renounce violence nor accept previous agreements made by Palestinian negotiators.
    In Jerusalem, the situation on the ground is constantly worsening. Three old religions and one historic City stand at the heart of the dilemma. Both Israelis and Palestinians see different parts of Jerusalem as their legitimate capital, yet illegal settlement growth in East Jerusalem is absorbing it into West Jerusalem and making it difficult to see how a peaceful division of the City could ever be possible. Other policies are forcing Palestinians to move. Plainly, this inhibits successful negotiations.

    In recent months, Israel has upset even her strongest allies. The murder of a Hamas commander in Dubai and the raid on aid ships heading for Gaza were diplomatic disasters. So, frankly, is the Gaza blockade because it is creating growing support for Hamas at the expense of Fatah – which is not remotely in Israel’s self-interest. Israeli opinion is puzzled. It resents criticism because it cannot understand why much of the world seems more tolerant of Hamas misbehaviour than Israeli action. I can explain this conundrum: it is that the world expects far more of Israel, a democratic State, than Hamas, a terrorist organisation. If Israel reaches out to her friends, she will receive support: if she does not, she will limit their tolerance of her actions.

    Is there a solution? Yes, of course – the obvious one, a negotiated settlement. But, if that cannot be achieved, if negotiators from Israel and the Palestinians cannot – or will not – make the concessions necessary to compromise, what then?

    Can the international community allow this dispute to run on and on forever – or will the time come when they have no choice other than to press their own ideas for a settlement?

    Understandably, the protagonists would hate this: but, if both sides take positions that impede progress, what alternative exists?

    Over recent years, the concept of an international peace-keeping force in Gaza and the West Bank has gained support. In Gaza, by monitoring the Egypt/Gaza border, it could inhibit the ability of Hamas to attack Israeli towns with rockets and, by enabling the blockade to be lifted, prevent the complete collapse of the economy. In the West Bank, it could focus on civil improvement, economic advance and more effective law and order.

    If progress is not made soon in bilateral negotiations, this idea may become an early step towards an imposed agreement.

    Will this be difficult? Of course it will. It is a gamble, a high risk toss of the coin, and one that requires great political courage, especially in Washington.

    Will it work? No-one can know – but nothing else has. Will America do it? Most people accept that the strength of the Israeli lobby limits America’s freedom of action. But time – and patience – is running out. The political risk of pressuring Israel – for any American Administration – is very great, but a contrary truth is that an agreement is in Israel’s long-term interest every bit as much as the Palestinians.

    Impossible, some say. Really? That’s what I was told before we started the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Distrust there was as toxic as between Israel and her adversaries, and yet Ireland is now a changed country, with neighbours once at war with one another, living together in harmony.

    And what is the alternative? A perpetual ongoing dispute that leaves generations of Israelis and Palestinians facing the same conundrum, the same hatreds, the same insecurities – until another war breaks out with enhanced weapons and an incalculable outcome.

    Iran

    Churchill once referred to Russia as “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”. He went on to say: “But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”

    Much the same could be said of Iran today. In the year since the flawed re election of Ahmadinejad, there has been widespread internal dissent by hundreds of thousands of individual Iranians. There have been marches, coded speeches, intellectual dissent, as liberty has raised its voice. The regime has responded with repression but, like others before them, they will find that the demand for change, for something better, for a free and open society, is impossible to smother forever. You cannot arrest freedom and keep it in jail.

    Because of the regime, we view Iran through a very narrow prism. Is she developing nuclear weapons? When will she have them? Will she use them? On whom? Some ask whether America – or Israel as a proxy – should attack and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities?

    The fear of a nuclear Iran is real. If she obtains a weapon, the risk of proliferation is high.

    Why is Iran doing this? The economy is in a mess. The currency is weak. Inflation, interest rates and unemployment are high. In the MENA, she is rated 137th out of 163 in terms of ease of doing business – only just ahead of the West Bank and Gaza. A sad comedown for a nation that, as Persia, was a great Empire, when the British and Americans lived in mud huts.

    Nothing is explicable without understanding that Iran is a nationalist and hard-line regime. The real source of power is the Supreme Leader, backed by the Revolutionary Guards, the Army, the Intelligence Services and the Police. The President, Ahmadinejad – so often the face of Iran – is a secondary figure. He is not the decisive decision-maker. He is the Apprentice, not the Sorcerer.

    What should we do? First, remember the regime is not the nation – as the internal dissent vividly makes clear. Even so, while the clerical regime survives, we must deal with it. It is possible negotiations may improve relations; and we should continue to try. But, because of the threat she poses, we must supplement dialogue with incentives and sanctions. In any event, adding a third military conflict after Iraq and Afghanistan is very unattractive – even if we cannot rule it out. But, for the time being, the sanctions applied last week seem the right way forward. We can only hope they prove sufficient.

    So often time is a tyrant. There is much I would like to have said of Lebanon – so often an innocent victim of wider issues. Of Syria – and how to engage her. Of Jordan – and our close friends in the Gulf. Of the rosy prospects of North Africa. Of Egypt and Turkey – and the importance of their role, and my support for Turkey’s application to join the EU.

    These – and other – issues must wait for another day. But not, I hope, for too long. The Middle East is stirring and we need to embrace it, consult it and benefit from its wisdom.

    If we do not, it will be our loss.

  • Sir John Major’s Comments on 2010 General Election – 7 May 2010

    The text of Sir John Major’s comments on the 2010 General Election, made on Friday 7th May 2010.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    The Conservative Party have had a huge advance in this General Election but we don’t have an overall majority, we haven’t won the election. We have something between 300 and 310 seats. So we cannot have a programme entirely of our own choosing, that’s what the electors have decided and we have to honour that.

    That does mean in the interests of making sure that we have stable government, that we have to look with whom we can do a deal and how we can do a deal. Not for party electoral interest but for national interest.

    So I think it is right to seek some sort of accommodation with the Liberals I’m entirely happy with that, I think it’s the right thing to do in the national interest.

    The important thing is to tackle the problems we have in the economy, they are very serious. I don’t think people realise how serious this structural different is. Its grown up over ten years, it needs to be dealt with comprehensively. That can be best dealt with a government that is secure in the House of Commons.

    If the price for that is one or two Liberals in the Cabinet, it’s a price in the national interest that I personally be prepared to bear.

    Of course we would prefer to have an overall majority. But we don’t have an overall majority. And what is the first matter of importance at the moment. It is to take the measures to put the economy right. If we leave it, if we drift along with a Government that can’t take those decisions then the risk of some form of market reaction and chaos is too high for any serious politician to take a risk with.

    Now upon that basis we have to seek an accommodation in my judgement, we are right to seek an accommodation, and of course not having an overall majority we must make sacrifices.

    There are many areas where we disagree with the Liberals, that is certainly true, there are other areas where there’s a substantial amount of common agreement. At a time of crisis you build on the common agreement, you don’t magnify the differences.

  • Article on the Economy under a Labour Government – 4 April 2010

    The text of Sir John Major’s article on the economy under Labour, published by The Sunday Mail on 4th April 2010.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    On 7th May 1999, Gordon Brown announced that he was planning to sell off 400 tonnes of our natural stock of gold. The British economy was still in good health and required no cash injection, yet he threw away over a half a century’s worth of the country’s inheritance – at the very bottom of the market.

    This catastrophic decision – unilaterally made by Gordon Brown – has lost Britain £6.6 billion – double the cost of Black Wednesday. In fact, to put Black Wednesday in context – the Exchequer now borrows almost £3.3 billion every week, simply to cover Labour’s debts.

    Gordon Brown was warned about the gold sales. Senior Treasury officials cautioned him against it. Investment banks told him the price was too low and would rise. Yet he chose to ignore them all, and claimed he was acting “on the technical advice of the Bank of England”. We now see from documents released under FOI that the Bank of England was, in fact, reluctant to back his proposal, but a key passage still remains blacked out. What is it that the Prime Minister wishes to hide?

    The sale of gold is just one of many decisions that illustrates how the Blair/Brown years have wrecked the golden economic inheritance that the last Conservative Government bequeathed them. Alas, there are plenty more.

    In 1997, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown abolished the Dividend Tax Credit paid to pension funds and companies. It has been estimated that this reckless action may have cost pension funds up to £150 billion.

    Indeed, Tony Blair’s own former pensions advisor stated that Gordon Brown “knowingly destroyed what was once one of the great pension systems in the world and he did it deliberately”. It was economic and social vandalism on a seismic scale.

    The Prime Minister consistently argues that Britain’s deficit has been the result of a global financial storm that started in America, and that spending grew because he did not want to “do nothing” during the recession. This is sophistry beyond the point of deception.

    A huge structural deficit – or government overspending that is with us year on year – has been built up by Gordon Brown since he stopped following the Conservative Government’s spending plans in 2001. As soon as he began to take his own decisions, the decline towards today’s economic train wreck began. Gordon Brown alone built this deficit. He alone is responsible for it. The British people will pay for it.

    And what of “boom and bust”? For years we had to endure the Blair/Brown mantra that they would abolish what they called “Tory boom and bust”. The British people have now discovered the reality. Labour has certainly abolished the boom, and has created an almighty bust. The Blair/Brown “boom” was a fake, built on a mountain of consumer and corporate debt, and the bust has been the longest and deepest – as Alistair Darling himself has admitted – for 60 years.

    Labour’s wild exaggeration about the cost of Black Wednesday was the beginning of a long history of bending statistics to distort truth and rational argument.

    Much of what the Prime Minister himself says is worthy of satire. Last summer, he tried to carry on the pretence that public spending would be increased over the next few years. He claimed repeatedly that expenditure would grow. This was patently absurd. Thankfully, David Cameron managed to change the terms of debate and won the argument that cuts are needed to get our record borrowing under control.
    But some of what the Prime Minister tries to claim is downright deception.

    When his sleight of hand was discovered over the abolition of the 10p tax band in 2007, he dismissed claims that this would hurt the poorest in society, saying “no one would lose out”. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies disagreed. Their own estimate was that 5.3 million families would suffer as a result of this policy.

    Most shamefully, the Prime Minister has deployed the same statistical chicanery on our Armed Forces. In October 2007 – in a cynically-timed visit – he flew to Iraq and told our troops that 1,000 of them would “home by Christmas”. In fact, the troops were just moved around the Gulf region, with an increase of over 500 personnel at sea, and an overall increase of 380 supporting operations in Iraq. Between September and December 2007, there was a reduction of only 430 troops in Iraq.

    Errors of fact in party political dispute can be excused, and even forgiven. But errors of fact affecting our Armed Forces in the field – and their families here at home who live in daily fear for the safety of their loved ones – can neither be excused nor forgiven. If any Prime Minister gives his word to service men and women – especially when they are engaged in active combat – this must be honoured to the letter. They deserve, and should expect, nothing less.

    And yet the deceptions continue: in the past few weeks alone, the Prime Minister has misled the public not once, not twice, but three times. First, he misled the Chilcot Inquiry, then the House of Commons, over defence spending, stating that spending had risen every year, when in fact it fell. Even his apology was disingenuous. He asserted that spending fell in “one or two” years, yet in fact it fell in four years since 1997.
    The Prime Minister then claimed 300,000 businesses had received “cash flow help” from the Government in the recession. Yet he must have known that the actual Government figure is only 160,000.

    Finally, by mingling two entirely separate sets of statistics, the Prime Minister claimed immigration is falling when, in fact, it is rising.
    Such a catalogue of errors is either incompetence or deception. Neither is acceptable nor worthy of the Office of Prime Minister.
    Gordon Brown’s personal decision to sell our gold at rock bottom prices – and for no good reason – cost Britain the equivalent of two Black Wednesdays. He has destroyed pensions. He has wrecked the economy. He has doubled the national debt and will do so again. Most regrettably of all, after thirteen years of this Labour Government, the word of the Prime Minister can no longer be trusted.

    When New Labour came to power it was hailed as a new dawn. But the sun is now setting. In May 1997, they inherited what Tony Blair’s own economic adviser termed a “better [economy] than that of any [incoming Government] in living memory”. They had the trust and goodwill of the British people. They have squandered it all.

    “A future fair for all” is Labour’s slogan in this election year. But having been let down so badly by this Labour Government in the past, how on earth can the British people believe they will be any better off with them in the future?

    Labour has had long enough to prove it is a Party fit to govern and has comprehensively failed that test. Time has finally run out for them and I hope that, on Tuesday, the Prime Minister will call the Election for which the country has been crying out for so long, and which he can no longer avoid.

  • Article on the Economy – 21 February 2010

    The text of Sir John Major’s article on the economy, published by The Sunday Mail on Sunday 21st February 2010.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    The central issue at the next election is – trust.

    “Things can only get better” trilled Labour in 1997. How wrong they were. The British electorate trusted Labour to inherit the most stable and competitive economy in Europe, and to invest wisely for the future. Yet over thirteen wasted years, our public finances have been squandered, and our economy is in a dire state. The damage they have done is so extensive it is hard to quantify.

    The total British national debt has more than doubled. Our annual debt has soared to levels never before seen in our history. We are unlikely – ever – to be able to reduce our overall debt to the low level of where the last Conservative Government left it in 1997.

    The last decade under Blair/Brown has been the worst for growth since the 1930s. Manufacturing is declining at a record rate. The City is wounded, with bits of it scarcely out of intensive care. The Stock Market has slumped. Our competitive advantage has been lost. The UK was the last but one nation in the G20 to come out of recession – and even then at only 0.1%. True to form, this Labour Government, like every single one of its predecessors, has wrecked the British economy and bequeathed a crisis.

    But the issue of trust is much wider than policy failures. The Labour Government is not candid – either with itself or the electorate. Even its statistics mislead. The debt to which they admit excludes large sums they have kept off the balance sheet. The unemployment figures only represent one-half of men and women of working age who are not gainfully employed. Labour continue to blame all our economic woes on the worldwide recession – another smokescreen. Of course the global situation was a contributing factor, but it was the UK Government that destroyed pensions; failed to regulate the Banks; and turned a blind eye to a mountain of national and personal debt.

    I do not believe most people yet realise how serious this debt is: the Labour Government are having to borrow £500 million-a-day. In the time it has taken to read this article, they will have borrowed another £3.5 million – more than most people could even dream of earning in several lifetimes. And yet it is these very people – the taxpayers – who will have to repay this debt and, while they do so, suffer the impact of cuts in services. Every one of us faces a decade of stringency because of Labour’s folly and mismanagement.

    Nor have Labour produced a fairer society with the money they have spent. The gap between rich and poor has widened, sink estates have worsened, social mobility has fallen and failing schools cripple the prospects of too many children. This is not fairness. It is failure.

    Try as they might, Labour cannot defend their record in Government, so their policy is to resort to their old trick of attacking their opponents with a barrage of fantasy claims, and what Churchill termed “terminological inexactitudes”. As they do, they widen still further the growing wedge between a disbelieving public and our political system.

    Why do they say what they know to be untrue? The Prime Minister tried to draw a (wholly false) distinction between Tory “austerity” and Labour “aspiration”. Alistair Darling up-ended that fiction. Austerity is unavoidable whoever forms the next Government. Labour know this, yet the Prime Minister offers false optimism, when what the electorate deserves is a stark and truthful assessment of the facts. For in time – after the election – the bleak truth will be all too apparent, and trust in politicians – and politics – will have been further eroded.

    The Prime Minister feeds the public with a diet of nonsense, telling us that tackling the deficit is his priority, whilst promising increased expenditure for popular services. The disconnect between the Prime Minister’s fantasy and the real world becomes ever wider. And yet he continues to make claims that are easily contradicted by the evidence. How can trust possibly be maintained? And how have we come to this?

    My own view is that – since the advent of New Labour – a once principled Labour Party has lost its political conscience and moral compass. From 1994 onwards, they existed only to win elections. Nothing mattered other than peddling back to the electorate what their polling had told them the electorate wished to hear. To win successive elections, they unleashed a private sector boom and public profligacy which the Treasury could not afford. And, as taxpayers basked in a false prosperity, a culture of deceit took root. People up and down the UK now see – and feel – the result of this reckless policy.

    Nor was this strategy restricted to economic and social policy. The findings of the Chilcott Inquiry may yet show us that public presentation and private reality were in conflict, even in matters of War: we shall see. However, it is certain that few soldiers (or their families) will forget that our Servicemen and women were sent to Afghanistan with the promise that “not a shot would be fired”. Such careless policy costs lives: already, alas, more than were lost in the Falklands conflict. This is emphatically not trustworthy Government.

    “Oh well”, people say as they shrug their apathetic shoulders, “that’s politics”. No, it is not. No-one should accept the way Labour massage facts to suit their purpose. Politics isn’t a game to be played out with a nod, a wink and a soundbite – it’s deadly serious and affects the lives of each and every one of us. I concede readily that when the Tories were in Government we got some things wrong, but we never lost sight of what was right, even when facing electoral defeat. And we never mortgaged the nation’s future to buy the nation’s votes.

    Deceiving the electorate should be a capital crime politically and yet, under Labour, the public has become inured to it. They should be outraged. When Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as Prime Minister, he promised to end the black arts of spin. This is yet another empty pledge from Labour, for Gordon Brown continues to preside over a swollen army of practitioners, whose role is to mislead the very people who are paying their salaries: the British taxpayer.

    But deception is not limited to these back-room figures. “Only 3,000 people will benefit from the Tory proposals on Inheritance Tax”, claimed one Cabinet Minister, whereas the true figure is 4 million. Another senior Labour figure claims the Tories will only cut tax for the rich. Such fatuous untruths are not accidental. They are a sub-text of Labour’s class war: the purpose is to promote envy, from which they hope to benefit electorally.

    Labour’s theme is that all Tories are “toffs”, who know nothing about ordinary people. What inverted snobbery this is – and what a grotesque travesty of the truth. I wonder how many readers of this article who vote Tory live a carefree and leisurely life?

    How many have not faced problems with bills, mortgages and family crises? Of course they have – we all have – Tories or not. As a Tory, I look back to my own “privileged” upbringing – full of all the luxuries offered in a multi-occupied, multi-racial house in Brixton. Labour’s class-based politics, setting citizen against citizen in order to win votes, can never bring social cohesion on the streets of Britain. It is a contemptible piece of politics.

    Another Labour claim is that “experienced” Gordon Brown is better equipped to clear up the mess (albeit one which he created), than the “callow” Tories. “The test of a Government”, stated the Prime Minister at his Party Conference, “is the quality of its judgement”. Quite so – but this hardly helps Labour’s case:

    Was it good judgement – or even legally right – to go to war in Iraq; or to move into Afghanistan with no clear military objective; or to under-equip our troops in both wars?

    Was it good judgement to lead the UK into record debt? Or to remove the safeguards that were in place pre-May 1997, which could have minimised the damage caused by the global crisis? Or to sell our Gold reserves at the very bottom of the market for no good purpose?

    Was it good judgement to reverse Conservative policies on health and education when they came into Government, only to re-introduce them, in re-packaged form, a few years later?

    Was it good judgement to force through 24-hour drinking, which has led to more anti-social behaviour and inner city crime? Or to pile so much paper-work on the police, that they spend more time form-filling and less in protecting our neighbourhoods?

    If judgement is the test, this Labour Government has failed spectacularly.

    “Things can only get better”, yet – over thirteen years – “New” Labour have undermined Parliament; taken us to war on a false premise; embellished that error by linking Iraq to the 9/11 attack on New York for which there is not a shred of evidence; affronted civil liberties in an over-reaction to the terrorist threat; brought the independence of the Civil Service into question; and made a mockery of the criminal justice system.

    The poet Philip Larkin once wrote: “Most things are not meant.” Labour did not mean to damage our national wellbeing, but they have. They did not mean to damage our personal liberty, but they have. They did not mean to undermine Parliament, but they have.

    Larkin was right, most things are not meant, but his poem was even more prescient than you may think. It is entitled: “Going, Going”. Let us hope – for all our sakes – it is not long before this Labour Government is finally gone gone.

  • Sir John Major’s Speech in Toronto – 4 February 2010

    The text of Sir John Major’s speech held at St George’s Windsor, in Toronto, on Thursday 4th February 2010.

    SIR JOHN MAJOR:

    Warmest thanks to Hilary and Galen [Weston]. It is because of their kindness and generosity that we’re all here tonight.

    We live in a world of complex – and often daunting – problems, yet tonight our focus is a venerable building that is an important piece of history. “If we forget the past”, said a wise man, “we will be condemned to relive it”. That is certainly true. But it is equally true that if we ignore the past, we lose part of our heritage and a sense of who we are.

    To many, Windsor Castle, the Chapel of St George, the Military Knights and the Knights of the Garter must seem very remote – almost the stuff of fairy tales – but they are not.

    Windsor Castle, said the diarist Samuel Pepys 350 years ago, is the “most romantic castle in the world”. Even to Pepys, it was already ancient, and had a charm which was hard to describe.

    Originally, the Castle formed one of a ring of garrisons, built to command the area around London. Windsor was a site of particular strategic importance, not only because it dominated the Thames – then the principal freight route – but also because the Castle was only one day’s march from the Tower of London.

    St George’s Chapel is far closer: just a short walk down the hill from the Castle. The Chapel was founded by King Edward III in 1348 and dedicated to St George, Patron Saint of England: the same George, you may recall, who is said to have slayed the Dragon.

    It was a very odd choice – of name, and of Patron Saint. St George did not slay a dragon. He was not English (so far as we know, he was born in Turkey). And he never visited England.

    Nonetheless, Edward III admired his legend, which is based in the town of Silene, Libya – in about 200 AD. The town had a very large lake, in which lived a dragon – presumably an amphibian dragon. Certainly fierce – in order to appease the dragon, the people of Silene fed it sheep. When the supply of sheep ran out, they started to feed it children, drawn by lottery.

    One day, the lot fell on the King’s daughter, and she was despatched to the lake, decked out as a bride, to be fed to the dragon.

    By chance, George rode past the lake. The Princess urged him to stay away – but he vowed to remain. At this point – enter the dragon. Up he reared from the lake.

    George fortified himself with a Sign of the Cross, charged the dragon, and inflicted a grievous wound. He called to the Princess to throw him her girdle, which he tied around the dragon’s neck. They then led the dragon back into the town, like a meek beast on a leash.

    The people were terrified at the dragon’s approach, but George promised them that – if they consented to become Christians – he would slay the dragon before them.

    The King, and the people of Silene, duly converted to Christianity. George slew the dragon. And on the site where the dragon died, the King built a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint George.

    At Windsor, myth became reality: St George’s Chapel, Windsor is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and St George, and has been a working Chapel for 660 years.

    Established to be independent of the State, it has remained so ever since. Each day, it holds three Services – one of which is sung by the choir.

    The Chapel is the centre of life of the College, and attracts a million visitors each year. The Chapel – and the medieval cloisters that surround it – are breathtakingly beautiful. And it is they that are at the heart of this Appeal.

    For centuries, the Chapel has been a focus for pilgrims, and a resting place for Monarchs. Many are buried there: Edward IV, Henry VI, Henry VIII – and Jane Seymour, his third wife and one of the Queens he didn’t kill. Charles I – a King who was killed – by Oliver Cromwell.

    More recently, HM The Queen’s parents, George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and her sister, Princess Margaret have been laid to rest there. This is no ordinary Chapel.

    When Edward III founded St George’s Chapel, he also founded the Poor Knights (now Military Knights) to care for it, and the Order of the Garter.

    Like St George, The Order of the Garter is a very British oddity. It consists of The Monarch, the Prince of Wales, and a further 24 Knight Companions – some from the Royal Family, and all personally chosen by the Monarch.

    There is no specific reason for appointment, which led a former Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, to state that he loved the Garter as – and I quote – “there was no damn merit in it”. A remark that existing Knights of the Garter such as Dukes, Prime Ministers, Field Marshals, Cabinet Secretaries and Governors of the Bank of England might prefer not to recall.

    The origin of the Order of the Garter – a blue garter with the motto Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense – will probably never be known. The myth is that, during a Ball to celebrate the surrender of Calais in 1347, The Countess of Salisbury dropped her garter and King Edward – seeing her embarrassment – retrieved it swiftly, and bound it about his own leg. As the Countess was attractive – and the King attracted – the Court muttered the medieval of Oh-ho! The King turned on them, saying: “Shame be to he who evil thinks”.

    Is it true? We’ll never know – but I hope it is.

    The origin of the Knights of the Garter is again the stuff of romantic history. It is thought that, in 1344, King Edward III – inspired by the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table – held a massive jousting tournament at Windsor Castle.

    He also promised to renew King Arthur’s fraternity of Knights and instructed that work should begin on a gigantic circular building within the Upper Ward of the Castle, in which this new Order of the Round Table – the Garter Knights – would be housed.

    To this day, each June, the procession taken by the Garter Knights from the Upper Ward to the Royal Chapel is a public witness to the long tradition of the Monarch and leading figures of the nation, giving their allegiance and thanksgiving to God for creating, renewing and sustaining the World.

    So let me return to St George’s, for it is a place not just for the Monarch, or the “Great and the Good”.

    In 1943, on the eve of his departure for battle in World War II, a young Lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards attended Evensong. This is the extract from his diary:

    To St George’s Chapel in the evening, for one of the finest pieces of singing I have yet heard there; and the last for a bit. I shall never mind going to war if I know that I am fighting that such institutions as St George’s may live, for they are England and epitomise the spirit of tradition and worship – the laying before God of the most perfect and beautiful singing that man can produce.

    Just as much work and practice goes into each service, even when no-one is there but God. There is nothing slip-shod or cheap there, and the result is inspiring and uplifting.

    Soon afterwards, this soldier was killed in action – in Italy – aged just 21. He died defending the way of life that St George’s so beautifully, so magnificently, encapsulates in its ancient walls and traditions.

    For many centuries, St George’s Chapel has offered a sense of constancy in an otherwise turbulent world. Our purpose is to preserve it for the centuries yet to come.