May 14
ENGLAND:
A Conservative MP who was staunchly anti-dp----Obituaries
Sir Charles Morrison----June 25, 1932 - May 9, 2005; Landowner and
Conservative MP whose moderate views did not find favour with Margaret
Thatcher
Entering Parliament for Devizes in 1964, 10 years ahead of his younger
brother Peter, Charles Morrison was at first marked down as ministerial
material. But it was not to be. The accession of Margaret Thatcher to the
Conservative Party leadership after the electoral defeat of Edward Heath
in 1974, followed by her becoming head of a right-wing Tory administration
in 1979, radically transformed the fortunes of this essentially liberal
and civilised individual.
His parliamentary career was, as a result, to be entirely on the back
benches, and it was Peter, a man staunchly of the Right, who prospered
under Mrs Thatcher, becoming a junior minister and eventually her PPS. (He
died of a heart attack in 1995.) Rebellious (within limits), Charles
Morrison frequently found himself at odds with Thatcherite doctrine.
Although in general an unobtrusive man, he spoke out in Parliament against
the Government on a range of issues, from the indiscriminate use of
free-market forces to control the economy, to cuts in the NHS to finance a
reduction in taxes.
He had voted to abolish hanging when it was suspended for an experimental
period of five years in 1965. He did so again in 1969 when it was
permanently abolished, and he continued to be among those who resisted its
reintroduction at successive votes in Parliament over the years.
Charles Andrew Morrison was born in 1932, the 2nd of 3 sons of John
Morrison, one of the most influential backbench Tory MPs of his time. In
1928 he had married into the WH Smith family. The Morrison family also
owned farmland in Wiltshire and the Isle of Islay, where it herded beef
cattle and sheep. John Morrison was, in 1964, created the 1st Lord
Margadale the last hereditary peerage to be created until Mrs Thatcher
revived the practice in 1983.
Charles Morrison went to Eton and did his National Service in the Life
Guards, from 1950 to 1952, after which he served in The Royal Wilts
Yeomanry (TA) until 1966. He had spent a couple of years at Cambridge, and
attended the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, before taking up
farming and managing the family estates with his father.
He became a county councillor for Wiltshire in 1958 and was chairman of
the countys education committee, 1963-64. In the latter year he entered
Parliament at a by-election, held in May, and held on to the seat in the
general election of October 1964, which brought Labour to power.
At the 1965 Conservative leadership election Morrison was an active
campaigner for Edward Heath to succeed Lord Home as party leader. Outside
Parliament he was chairman of the South West Regional Sports Council,
1966-68; of the British Trust of Conservation Volunteers, 1973-78; and of
the Game Conservancy, 1987-94. While she was Education Secretary under
Edward Heath, Mrs Thatcher had appointed him chairman of the Young
Volunteer Force Foundation.
After Heaths replacement by her at the leadership election of 1975 he was
not to know preferment again, and pursued a path on the back benches. When
Edward du Canns chairmanship of the backbench 1922 Committee was
challenged in 1979, Morrison, one of the vice-chairmen, was a favoured
candidate. But he and the other vice-chairman, Sir Paul Bryan, decided to
toss a coin rather than split the vote in what was a first-past-the-post
race. Morrison lost, leaving Bryant to run, only to be defeated, to give
du Cann his 8th year in office.
Morrison, who was knighted in 1988, stood down from his seat at the 1992
general election and concentrated on his farming interests on Islay, where
he also had an interest in a hotel, and in Wiltshire. In 1966 he had
bought Anthony Edens Fyfield Manor at Pewsey, with its 300 acres of
cereals and pasture, when the former Prime Minister, by then Earl of Avon,
was advised to quit farming for his healths sake. Morrison was also a
Lloyds underwriter and a director of Sothebys. He was a deputy lieutenant
for Hereford and Worcester, 1995-2000.
Morrison was twice married, first in 1954 to Sara Long, a daughter of the
2nd Viscount Long. As Sara Morrison she was also a Wiltshire county
councillor and alderman, and served as vice-chairman of the Conservative
Party Organisation, 1971-75. The marriage was dissolved in 1984, and he
married in that year Mrs Rosalind Ward (ne Lygon), a niece of the 8th and
last Earl Beauchamp. This marriage was dissolved in 1999.
Sir Charles Morrison is survived by the son and daughter of his 1st
marriage.
Sir Charles Morrison, MP for Devizes, 1964-92, was born on June 25, 1932.
He died of cancer on May 9, 2005, aged 72.
(source: The London Times)
IRAQ:
Talabani won't sign Saddam death sentence
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
will probably be executed, but he will not ratify or sign the death
sentence.
Speaking during an interview with a Saudi Arabian newspaper, al-Sharq
al-Awsat, Talabani said: "I believe that Saddam Hussein will be sentenced
to death and the ruling will be carried out, but personally I will be
absent the day of the execution. I am a member of an international group
of lawyers and we have agreed with the International Committee of the Red
Cross not to support the capital punishment."
Saddam and his top aides are to stand trial before a special court on
charges of war crimes and genocide against the Iraqi people, especially
those in the nation's Kurdish community.
(source: United Press International)
