Defeat
For the 1959 general election, Morris' seat was one of most high-profile marginal seats in the country. He had Aneurin Bevan to open his campaign, and attacked the Conservative Government for increasing unemployment. However, the Conservatives also had high-profile support including from Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Local people were thought to be against nationalisation and Swansea Council had embarked on a controversial plan of comprehensive education to which Morris was tied by virtue of his high rank within the council leadership. An energetic young Conservative candidate, Hugh Rees defeated Morris by 403 votes.
Morris remained Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Swansea County Borough Council. Immediately after the election one Labour Alderman moved a motion protesting against remarks by Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery who had questioned the sanity of people who intended to vote for the Labour Party. Morris argued that as Montgomery "had had the grace to apologise, the committee should have equal grace to accept the apology".
Read more about this topic: Percy Morris
Famous quotes containing the word defeat:
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy...and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 7:1-4.
“And, “Better defeat almost,
If seen clear,
Than life’s victories of doubt
That need endless talk-talk
To make them out.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The rule for every man is, not to depend on the education which other men have prepared for him,—not even to consent to it; but to strive to see things as they are, and to be himself as he is. Defeat lies in self-surrender.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)