sentences:  Having served as Chair of the Conservative Backbenchers' Army sub-committee for most of the 1950s, he was made Vice-Chairman of the Defence Committee from 1958.Knighted in 1959, Prior-Palmer was regarded as an 'elder statesman' but could still be angered by pacifist sentiment.In February 1960 he claimed that the Labour Party had "sent one of their chief leaders to Swaythling to stop men making Spitfires".