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Personnel. "Why, therefore, should I be called upon to pick out scapegoats and throw the blame upon generals and sacrifice my loyal and trusted colleagues and friends? . . . While I take full responsibility for the broad, strategic dispositions, that does not mean that scandals, inefficiency or misbehavior . . . will not be probed."
Production. "Our munitions output is gigantic . . . and it is bounding up in a most remarkable manner. . . . We are producing more than twice as many far more complicated guns every month as we did in the peak of the 1917-18 war period."
The U.S. "During the three weeks I spent in President Roosevelt's home and with his family I established with him relations not only of comradeship but of friendship. We can say anything to each other, however painful."
Changes. The Prime Minister promised to appoint a Minister of Production, corresponding to Donald Nelson of the U.S., and to give the Dominions voices in the high war councils.
When Winston Churchill finished, his critics reflected that he had given no convincing answer to charges that Britain's war councils, both productive and military, are rotten with dead wood and cluttered with red tape, that production could be 40% greater. Although he was doubtless right that Britain had been unable to reinforce Malaya, he did not explain away the fact that the British high command had mistakenly believed that Malaya could successfully repel any attack. His skillful apologies for the military past were little assurance for the future.
Of those who had debated against the Prime Minister, one was Conservative Sir John Wardlaw-Milne, who said: "In its desire and determination to win the war this Government as a whole is to me a great and shining light, a beam like a searchlight over the horizon, and that is why I shall support it. But when it comes to other matters I am afraid the light does not shine anything like so brightly. Sometimes it is no better than a gas jet, and I am afraid that in their determination not to change any system that we have been working on for years ... it seems little more nor less than a farthing dip. . . ."
*The others, John ("Jock") McGovern and Campbell Stephen, were tellers, could not vote.