Food Minister John Strachey announced today that ?gadier V.T.R. Ford, food controller in Nottingham, has been dismissed for a statement to visiting German journalists in which he blamed Jews for the existence of the lack market.
Strachey told a cheering Commons that his inquiry had established that Ford and made statements attributed to him, and that although the minister accepted Ford’s explanation that it was not his intention to “cast reflections on the Jewish race,” ?n effect his statement could be construed as doing just that. He revealed that ##ord had submitted his resignation as suggested by a board of inquiry and that he had accepted it.
Strachey refused to make public the findings of the board. In response to a requestion whether the German correspondents had been assured that the “heresies and spites of Goebbels and Goering” would not be tolerated in England, Strachey said his action was sufficient indication of that attitude.
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