A controversial Conservative party donor was a subject of attention in the debate on the Queen's Speech yesterday, which was dominated by Afghanistan.
Mike Gapes (Lab, Ilford South), the chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, raised the business interests of Lord Ashcroft, deputy chairman of the Conservative party.
He has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to Tory coffers and has also lent the party more than £3m.
Gapes told the House that a letter was sent to Conservative leader David Cameron by Shaun Malcolm, a former leading opposition politician in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
The islands, a British overseas territory, were recently placed under direct rule from London after allegations of corruption.
Gapes quoted from the letter.
"I write to you in reference to your deputy chairman, Lord Michael Ashcroft, and the possibility that the Conservatives may form the next government in Britain.
"We respectfully and sincerely ask for your written assurance that Lord Ashcroft will not be influencing, directly or indirectly, decisions regarding the Turks and Caicos Islands should the Conservatives win the next election, and if you are willing to give us these assurances then we kindly ask for you to work with us now to establish tangible safeguards towards this goal.
"The people of the TCI have passed through an extremely dark period.
"The media in the islands was bought or intimidated, free speech was restrained, and much like dissidents in China, we had to go to the Internet to get beyond the intimidation of the local government to inform our citizens and the world community about what was happening here.
"Your deputy chairman, Lord Ashcroft, and his son Andrew Ashcroft, have been deeply involved in the affairs of the TCI for much of this last decade, to the point where his bank, Belize Bank TCI, recently renamed as British Caribbean Bank, is now the largest banking institution within these islands, as stated by him.
"Sir Robin's Inquiry found that many of the questionable transactions involving local politicians during these last six years were financed by Lord Ashcroft's bank."
The letter also claimed that Lord Ashcroft's "wealth and his willingness to use it, has and does give him a level of influence that we feel puts any hope of democracy here at risk".
Former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Con, Kensington and Chelsea) condemned Gapes.
"It is profoundly disturbing that the priorities of the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) are to give 30 seconds to Afghanistan and the rest of his speech to the Turks and Caicos Islands, but he must account for that," he said.
"It is also profoundly disturbing that this country has been, for all practical purposes, almost continuously at war over the past 10 years - in Kosovo, Iraq and now Afghanistan.
"There has been no similar period since the end of the second world war in 1945 when that could have been said."
Sir Malcolm turned his attention to the Afghan conflict.
"Unlike the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which was loathed by every Afghan, we are dealing with the Taliban insurgency, and even if the Taliban have some significant support among the Pashtun element of the population, it is worth remembering that that is only half the population of Afghanistan, and there is no evidence of any enthusiasm for the Taliban from the other half.
"It is worth remembering also that almost half the members of the Afghan national army, which is being created at this very moment, are from the Pashtun section of the population from the south of the country and represent that ethnic group.
"Let the House recall too that when the mujaheddin were fighting the Soviets, the mujaheddin had strong support not only from the United States but from Saudi Arabia and a range of other countries in the international community. The Taliban have no support of that kind."
Sir Malcolm told the House that we went into Afghanistan "to stop al-Qaeda being able to operate from within that country".
"We have already achieved that aim, which was the primary reason we went there. Effectively, al-Qaeda has been emasculated within Afghanistan.
"The mischief that it can get up to from the caves in the mountains is of very little consequence, in terms of its Afghan operation.
"The question is how we prevent that situation from being reversed, and how we sustain it. That means that we cannot simply pull out and create a vacuum; that would give the Taliban free run of at least half the country, if not the whole."
Dr Kim Howells (Lab, Pontypridd) a former foreign minister, has called for a British military withdrawl from Afghanistan.
"The argument for fighting terrorism in Afghanistan rather than in Britain was heard more often, from people such as me, after the murder by Islamic terrorists of 52 innocent citizens in London in July 2005, but we ought to remember that by 2005 few of the terrorists' links can have remained in Afghanistan," he said.
"The combined operations by American, Canadian and British forces over the previous three years had driven the Taliban and al-Qaeda leaderships out of Afghanistan, so that they were forced to find refuge in other ungoverned places. Chief among those was Pakistan, and they remain there, as the current wave of suicide bombings bears witness.
"No doubt some will also have moved on to Yemen, Somalia and the Sahel-that huge ungoverned space that stretches across northern Africa.
"Others will have integrated themselves in cities such as Mumbai and Mombasa, and in locations closer to European targets.
"I cannot believe that any politician, in this or any other country, assumes that the act of killing Afghan Taliban in large numbers will reduce the threat posed by an international terrorist organisation capable of adapting and regrouping as al-Qaeda has.
"I hope that a government will emerge in Kabul who are capable of convincing the Afghan people that they have a society worth protecting from the misogynistic, mediaeval cruelty and backwardness of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but I sense that the vast majority of the British public share my pessimism and believe that it will be a very long time before that happens.
"I also sense that the British public, for better or worse but increasingly, will become less tolerant of governments placing at risk the lives of our armed forces by deploying them to such conflicts in support of outcomes that are complex and confusing."
Former shadow home secretary David Davis (Con, Haltemprice and Howden) also spoke about Afghanistan.
"If it is not clear what a victory looks like, it is certainly clear what a disaster looks like," he told MPs.
"A disaster would be a precipitate withdrawal from Afghanistan now.
"Whether it looks like the American scramble out of Vietnam, with helicopters on the roof of the embassy, or whether it looks like the Russian deployment when the last general - I think it was General Gromov - walked out in a dignified manner over Friendship bridge back into mother Russia: either way, it is a disaster on several counts."
He added:
"The conditions for withdrawal with honour and with some form of positive conclusion to the campaign are those that leave in place a stable state that will not be perfect, but which can manage its own affairs, which we can deal with and Pakistan can deal with, and which delivers a reasonable prospect of life to Afghan citizens.
"If we achieve that, the pill will be less bitter than the one our citizens have had to swallow so far."
Former minister for veterans, Derek Twigg (Lab, Halton) said he is committed to the British presence in Afghanistan and "we must see it through".
"I am concerned that we are not looking at it as we should," he said.
"We cannot be in Afghanistan in a half-hearted way. There must be 100 per cent political will from this government, from all the parties and from our NATO allies to see the matter through to its conclusion."
John Maples (Con, Stratford-on-Avon), accused foreign secretary David Miliband and his predecessors of "gratuitous moralising about what goes on in other countries where we have no influence and no interest".
"In many respects, this is a rerun of the old argument about whether one should promote one's interests or one's values in foreign policy," he said.
"I think the answer is both, but values certainly seem to have taken the upper hand over the last 12 years. They have led to a series of errors.
"How would we react if President Assad started making comments on our fiscal irresponsibility over the last few years, or the Chinese president criticised us over our rather weak financial regulation?
"We would be pretty unhappy about it, and I think the press and members in all parts of this House would unite in opposition to such criticism.
"Such comment sounds arrogant, and if a first-world country directs it at a third-world country, it does not just sound arrogant, it sounds neo-imperialist as well.
"When my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (William Hague) becomes foreign secretary - which I very much hope he will in a few months' time - I hope he will resist the temptation to comment, particularly from a moral point of view, on issues over which we have no influence and little, or no, interest."
David Winnick (Lab, Walsall, North) returned to the Afghanistan conflict.
"Eight years is a long time," he said.
"The first world war lasted four years and the second world war lasted six years, which is why I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), a former Defence Minister, about his comment about there being no time limit.
"Some of the contributions that we have heard today would give the impression that this began only recently-one, two or three years ago-whereas it began eight years ago. The question then arises, as it should do: how much longer will this go on?
"It is all very well to say that there should be no time limit, but are we to work on the basis that another eight years should elapse and so many more should die?
"Why pick eight years? Why not operate on the basis of even longer, given that there appears to be no time limit of any kind?"
Adam Price (Plaid, Carmarthen East) said a different strategy is needed.
"Other possibilities are being canvassed," he told the House.
"We need discussions with the Taliban leadership, and not just locally: we need to speak to the shura based in Quetta, as has been suggested.
"The Afghan government are about to commence negotiations with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is part of the insurgency.
"If it is responsible to talk to Hekmatyar, why can we not talk to the Taliban leadership as well?
"A new Loya Jirga should be convened to draw up a new decentralised constitution for Afghanistan, which would properly distribute power equally among the different ethnic and regional groups, away from the hands of a corrupt President, so that people across Afghanistan could feel they had a real political stake in the future of their country."
David Winnick (Lab, Walsall North) turned his attention to the Middle East.
"What is needed is a viable two-state solution, with the borders close to the 1967 line. Jerusalem must be shared, with the eastern part of the city forming the Palestinian capital," he said.
"Indeed, that is very close to what Ehud Olmert, the then Israeli Prime Minister, offered Mr Abbas a year ago-a deal that included nearly all of the west bank, land swaps for limited settlement blocks and shared sovereignty over Jerusalem.
"Mr Abbas and many Palestinians must be kicking themselves now that the offer was not taken up, given the deterioration in relations between the two parties since."
Jeremy Corbyn (Lab, Islington, North) told MPs that" the majority of our constituents are, at the very least, deeply concerned about the policy on Afghanistan".
He said "the vast majority" want British troops to come out of Afghanistan because they do not feel that those troops are doing any good there.
"People do not feel that the troops are doing anything other than laying down their lives for a corrupt government who are involved with warlords, and possibly with the drugs trade," Corbyn said.
"They feel that the very presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan, far from bringing about peace in the country, acts as an effective recruiting sergeant for the Taliban and all their elements. There have to be talks, negotiation and discussions."
Sir Menzies Campbell (LD, North-East Fife) said it was too easy to call for a "precipitate withdrawal".
"First, there would be regional instability: the relationship with Pakistan is well known," he said.
"Secondly, there would be damage to NATO, perhaps irreparably. There are those who would quite like NATO to be irreparably damaged.
"Russia has never lost its ambition to bring an end to NATO's existence and to create an alternative security architecture.
"Thirdly, precipitate withdrawal would bring about a serious strain on our relationship with the United States, at a time when we have a President who is more attuned to Europe and European ideas than many of his predecessors.
"Fourthly, it would return the people of Afghanistan, very likely, to the Taliban, and the return of the Taliban to control in Afghanistan would almost certainly provide much more sympathetic opportunities for al-Qaeda.
"Is President Karzai about to win the John Stuart Mill prize for liberalism? I doubt it very much.
"The president's defects are well known, but he is all we have got, and even if there had been a second election, he would be all we have got.
"That means that, to achieve the conditions for withdrawal to which I referred, we may, if necessary, have to work around him."
Robert Marshall-Andrews (Lab, Medway) condemned Israel's actions in Gaza at the start of the year.
"Some 150,000 Palestinians have no running water and 80 per cent of the water they have is below World Health Organisation standards," he said.
"That is because the treatment plants were destroyed, almost certainly deliberately, during the invasion of Gaza.
"As a result of the destruction of the sewage plants, 7 million litres of untreated sewage is poured every day into the sea off Gaza.
"There was deliberate killing of civilians; there were 1,440 deaths in Gaza during the invasion in December last year. Some 431 of those who died were children and 114 were women.
"White phosphorous is an unassailable fact recorded by the United Nations, which knows that it was used against its own installations; 57 were hit during the invasion of Gaza.
"The only flour mill operating in Gaza was destroyed on 9 January in an absolutely deliberate and premeditated attack.
"Chicken farms, on which the people of Gaza overwhelmingly rely for their protein, were destroyed.
"Some 100,000 birds were destroyed; 60 per cent of the agricultural land was rendered useless. Some 17 per cent of the orchards were destroyed.
"That is the cost of the Israeli invasion of Gaza."
He said there were "serious and repeated breaches of the fourth Geneva convention of 1949 and its first protocol".
"Without a remedy for that injustice, we will never create international peace or a suitable antidote to international terrorism."
David Anderson (Lab, Blaydon) was upbeat about the "huge potential for investment in Iraq".
"The Iraqis want us there," he said.
"They have a great belief in the craftsmanship of British workpeople and a great loyalty to us for what this government and this country have done over many years.
"The Iraqis want us to take up those opportunities, but it is clear that other countries are getting there ahead of us. We really need to step up our game, and we need UK Trade and Investment to do that."
Christopher Chope (Con, Christchurch) said there is "no clarity at all" about the Afghan mission.
"They have not yet succeeded in persuading the people of this country that our young friends and family members are not dying in vain," he said.
Paul Flynn (Lab, Newport, West) said Britain into Afghanistan "partly because 90 per cent of our drugs were being produced there".
"It was not the main reason for the war, but it was one of the reasons why going into that country in 2001 was a popular decision," he said.
"Now, after the deaths of 235 soldiers and enormous expenditure by taxpayers in this country to reduce drug growth, we can see that what we have done has had no influence whatever on the production of heroin."
Anne Milton (Con, Guildford) also condemned the "lack of clarity".
"Is this about threats to our security, about poppies, about al-Qaeda, about the Taliban, about threats to our security, about reconstruction or about Pakistan? she asked.
Anne Main (Con, St Albans) told the House her constituent, Captain James Philippson, was the first soldier to be killed in action in battle in June 2006.
"Before reaching their comrades, the rapid reaction unit was also ambushed, and during that attack, Captain Philippson sadly lost his life."
She claimed the defence secretary had "relied heavily on the original board of inquiry report to cast doubt on the coroner's comments about his department's responsibility for Captain Philippson's death through a lack of equipment".
"He effectively allowed the reputation of Major Bristow to be dragged through the mud, and gave himself a convenient hook on which to hang his failings over lack of equipment.
"The report of the second board of inquiry was published last week, and rightly absolved Major Bristow of any responsibility for the incident."
Secretary of State for Defence Bob Ainsworth rose to reply.
"If any impartial study were made of the first board of inquiry, the coroner's report, my actual comments and the subsequent service board of inquiry, it would find no evidence that I had ever tried to besmirch the reputation of Major Bristow in any way at all," he said.
"I had no control over the original board of inquiry, or the subsequent service inquiry; they were controlled by the Army.
"It is right to say that they came to slightly different conclusions, but I have never attacked the reputation of a serving officer, although the hon. Lady tries repeatedly to say that I did. She really should not try to suggest that I did."
Main said the "complete about-turn and the subsequent statement that Major Bristow is in no way responsible for the death of Captain James Philippson, I am sure that the secretary of state will today take the opportunity to issue an apology to Major Bristow for any inadvertent slur - if it is inadvertent - on a serving officer."
Sir Nicholas Winterton (Con, Macclesfield) raised "the matter of Zimbabwe".
"Today, I got an e-mail from friends in Zimbabwe entitled "What will Santa bring Zimbabwe?" I fear that it will not be a very happy or prosperous Christmas there," he said.
"From all the information that I receive from Zimbabwe, it seems that a sense of uncertainty and foreboding is spreading, after a period of some progress."
Shadow defence secretary Dr Liam Fox (Con, Woodspring) told the House that we "cannot conflate the military mission with the reconstruction mission" in Afghanistan.
"If we try to describe in reconstruction terms the reasoning for undertaking a national security mission, we are likely to confuse the British public further," he told MPs.
"We also need to be consistent in our messaging.
"We are either in Afghanistan as a result of a national security imperative or we are not; we cannot change the reasoning week by week.
"If one week we say that we have to see the mission through, we must not later send the mixed signal that we would not be there if we could possibly avoid it."
The defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth (Lab, Coventry NE) wound up the debate.
"From the military point of view, we have taken essential steps in the right direction this summer," he told the House.
"In the south, the spiritual home of the Taliban and the centre of the insurgency, the inflow of thousands of additional troops has enabled the Afghan government to extend their authority around the main population centres.
"Try as the insurgents might, they failed significantly to disrupt the first Afghan-led elections. This is a measure of the progress that has been made, but the elections have proven to be messy, imperfect and drawn out.
"As the foreign secretary set out at the beginning of this debate, the commitment of President Karzai to reach out to his opponents to promote national reconciliation, to strengthen the Afghan security forces and to stamp down on corruption is now crucial."
