Patrick Wall

Sir Patrick Henry Bligh Wall, MC, VRD (14 October 1916 – 15 May 1998) was a British commando in the Royal Marines during the Second World War and later a Conservative Party politician.

During the Second World War, he served onboard Iron Duke, Valiant, and Malaya, followed by a spell at HMS Turtle, the landing craft base.

He continued his naval connection as Commander of 47 Commando Royal Marines Voluntary Reserve from 1951 to 1957, and from 1950 to 1966, was Commissioner of the Sea Scouts for London.

After Rhodesia's UDI in 1965, he joined forces with Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury, to lead the Tory revolt against their party's support for the Labour administration's sanctions policy.

Wall believed that white rule in Southern Africa was the last bulwark against the spread of communism in the region, which he described as "this evil virus".

In 1975, writing in the journal To The Point, Patrick Wall said "the basic philosophy of the Communist powers is to detach Southern Africa from the Western World."

In November 1971, he and John Biggs-Davison, joined, as observers, British troops in action in Northern Ireland against the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

In May 1974, Wall, John Biggs-Davison, and Robert Taylor tabled a motion in the House of Commons deploring the Labour government's decision to cancel the visit of the Royal Yacht Britannia to Cape Town, describing it as "vindictive and selective spite."

In August Commander Anthony Courtney and Wall issued a Monday Club Paper attacking the "high proportion of official Communist representatives in London, who are known to be engaged in 'legal' espionage under diplomatic cover."

In a letter published in the Daily Telegraph in November 1974, Patrick Wall wrote "Conservatism has lost millions of votes because the man in the street no longer believes that they stand primarily for Britain's interests."

He added: "to the man in the street the Conservative leadership has been more intent on crushing the Rhodesians than the IRA; more interested in the Ugandan Asians than in maintaining the rights of Britons living abroad; more worried about Enoch Powell than Messrs. Hugh Scanlon and Arthur Scargill".

Wall was presented with a Fellowship Certificate of the Chartered Institute of Journalists at a formal reception for the occasion, held at the National Liberal Club, London, on Wednesday 12 July 1989.

Labour MP Andrew Faulds called (perhaps not entirely seriously) for the results of some municipal elections to be declared invalid because an "illegal broadcast" had been made, and Postmaster-General Edward Short stated that "It is the first time in peacetime that this country has been subjected to a stream of misleading propaganda from outside our territorial waters and I do not think this is a matter for joking".

From 1976 until its success in 1981, Wall was also a strong supporter of the campaign for the legalisation of Citizens' Band Radio in the UK, and was one of the most influential members of the House of Commons ad hoc committee on CB.