The Right Honourable
The Lord Naseby
PC
Official portrait, 2019
Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons
Chairman of Ways and Means
In office
6 May 1992 – 14 May 1997
SpeakerBetty Boothroyd
Preceded byHarold Walker
Succeeded byAlan Haselhurst
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
11 November 1997
Life Peerage
Member of Parliament
for Northampton South
In office
28 February 1974 – 8 April 1997
Preceded byConstituency Created
Succeeded byTony Clarke
Personal details
Born (1936-11-25) 25 November 1936
London, United Kingdom
Political partyConservative
SpouseAnn Phyllis Appleby
Alma materSt Catharine's College, Cambridge

Michael Wolfgang Laurence Morris, Baron Naseby, PC (born 25 November 1936) is a British Conservative Party politician.

Early life

Born in London and educated at Bedford School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, Morris was taught to fly in Pakistan and Canada and served in the Royal Air Force.[1]

Parliamentary career

Morris contested Islington North at the 1966 general election, being beaten by Labour's Gerry Reynolds.

He was first elected to the House of Commons at the February 1974 general election for the then-marginal seat of Northampton South.[2] His majority was just 179 in February 1974, and 141 in October 1974. In 1983 boundary changes turned it into a safe Conservative seat.

Morris oversaw the passing of the Maastricht Treaty in the Commons in his role as Deputy Speaker. He was defeated by 744 votes at the 1997 general election,[3][4] when the Labour Party under Tony Blair won a landslide victory.

From 1992, Morris held the non-voting position of Chairman of Ways and Means and Deputy Speaker, and after the election he accepted a life peerage as Baron Naseby, of Sandy in the County of Bedfordshire on 28 October 1997.[5]

Coat of arms of Michael Morris, Baron Naseby
Crest
Upon a helm with a wreath Argent and Azure behind and grasping two pikes in saltire or beribboned Azure an eagle displayed Argent beaked and legged Or.
Escutcheon
Azure a pall Argent cotised Or between three lotuses the corollas outwards Argent.
Supporters
On either side a horse statant erect reguardant Argent maned tailed and unguled and supporting between the forelegs a mace Or.
Motto
Cogito Ergo Sum [6]

Controversies

In 2014, the Daily Telegraph's chief political commentator Peter Oborne described Lord Naseby as an apologist for the Sri Lankan government, who had given misleading and inaccurate statements about war crimes in Sri Lanka. He was described as giving "comfort to the perpetrators of state sponsored terror" and receiving hospitality from the Sri Lankan government.[7] Human rights groups accuse Lord Naseby of purposely downplaying the death toll figures gathered by the United Nations panel in 2011 which found that as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed in the final months of the civil war in 2009.[8][9][10]

References

  1. ↑ Lord Lexden, The Few Who Flew: RAF National Service Pilots 1955-1957, 15 November 2022, https://www.alistairlexden.org.uk/news/book-review-flying-high
  2. ↑ "Patrons". Naseby Battlefield Project. Archived from the original on 7 March 2010. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  3. ↑ "Northampton South". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  4. ↑ Bennetto, Jason; Russell, Ben (18 November 2005). "Two charged over leak of Blair-Bush conversation on conflict". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 14 May 2022. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  5. ↑ "No. 54851". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 August 1997. p. 8910. "No. 54936". The London Gazette. 3 November 1997. p. 1.
  6. ↑ Debrett's Peerage. 2000.
  7. ↑ Peter Oborne, The Telegraph, 4 June 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20150421020342/http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100274702/lord-naseby-has-misled-the-lords-over-sri-lanka-he-must-withdraw-his-allegations/
  8. ↑ Darusman, Marzuki; Sooka, Yasmin; Ratner, Steven R. (31 March 2011). Report of the Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka (PDF). United Nations. p. 41.
  9. ↑ Sri Lanka Campaign for peace and justice - Lord Naseby’s ‘revelations’: a hollow attempt to re-write history and deny justice (2017) - https://www.srilankacampaign.org/lord-nasebys-revelations-hollow-attempt-re-write-history-deny-justice/
  10. ↑ Sri Lanka Campaign for peace and justice - Why the Paisley scandal should prompt wider scrutiny of the UK-Sri Lanka war crimes denial lobby (2018) https://www.srilankacampaign.org/why-the-paisley-scandal-should-prompt-wider-scrutiny-of-the-uk-sri-lanka-lobby/


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