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Saturday 26 May 2012

The Spectator's Notes

At the weekend, we stayed in Hillsborough Castle, official residence of the secretaries of state for Northern Ireland. There, in the 1770s, came Benjamin Franklin. He was said to have got on so badly with Lord Hillsborough, then acting Secretary of State for the Colonies, that he went home and declared the independence of the United States. There, in the 1990s, came numerous Peace Processors; and there, in April 2003, came George W. Bush and Tony Blair to discuss the Iraq they had just invaded. Things have got quieter since then, and our visit was intended as a tour of aspects of the province’s history kindly laid on by the present Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, and his wife Rose. But an accident of timing stirred things up. Our fellow guests included Lord Ashcroft, the owner of the conservativehome website, and Tim Montgomerie, its editor. The BBC led on Friday with Montgomerie’s claim that three Cabinet ministers had told him that the government should drop its Health Bill. Was Paterson one of the indiscreet three? Was a plot afoot at the castle?

•••

No. Paterson was trenchant about the stupidity of ever dropping a ‘flagship’ Bill. He had innocently asked Ashcroft over because the former Tory Treasurer has built up a collection of over 160 Victoria Crosses, and he wanted to introduce him to the several VCs of which Northern Ireland is so proud. But by buying conservativehome, Ashcroft did something shrewd. He has turned himself into the modern equivalent of a press proprietor for about a thousandth of the price. Thanks to Montgomerie’s skill, the website has become the place where all Tory news and gossip appears. It is read by everyone who matters in the government, and its reports are fanned by press and television. The Ashcroft political empire has other branches. He owns Total Politics, Campaigns and Elections magazine and Biteback Media, the leading political publisher. He also conducts, at his own expense, what he calls ‘research to remind politicians what matters’. This is the subtitle of his latest book, It’s Not You, It’s Them, which elucidates his opinion polls and focus group findings. Although he has views of his own, Ashcroft is very unlike most rich men in politics. He uses his money to tell politicians what the public thinks rather than what he thinks — which, perversely, gives whatever he does think more force. For years, Ashcroft’s critics have raged against what they see as his attempt to buy power in the Tory party. They miss the key point: for remarkably little money, he has gained power over it from outside. He is becoming the Beaverbrook of the internet age.

•••

The Ulster VCs moved us. Under the guidance of the Ulsterman Col. Tim Collins — he of the rousing pre-battle speech in Iraq — we were taken first to the museum of the Royal Ulster Rifles in Belfast, and then to that of the Royal Irish Fusiliers in Armagh. In honour of Lord Ashcroft, eight VCs were specially produced in the course of the day.  I had never handled one before: there is something impressive in their dull metal and their lack of ornament. One was the medal of the 20-year-old William McFadzean, a huge young man who saw that the pins had fallen out of two grenades in a box which had slipped down a trench near Thiepval Wood on the first day of the Somme. He threw himself on to the box, thus saving his comrades from the blast, and dying. Tim Collins told us that the VC is a medal of which the winner can never be stripped, regardless of subsequent disgrace. It is a good principle, which might with advantage be applied to knighthoods. It means the award is bestowed only sparingly.

•••

Also in the RUR Museum is the battle-dress in which Col. Collins made his speech. One felt that the speech text should be there with it, but there isn’t one. Collins, who has the Irish gift of the gab, spoke extempore. The oration’s survival is owed solely to Sarah Oliver, the embedded reporter of the Daily Mail, who noted it down. In an unusually exact sense, journalism was the first draft of history. Today, Collins is in civilian life, training Kurds, Afghans and Colombians how to have a Special Branch and run their own agents. Ulster’s security skills, so little honoured in modern mainland Britain, still make a thriving export.

•••

Armagh Cathedral contains the chapel of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and there their colours are hung. At the battle of Barossa, the Faughs (pronounced Fogs) became the first British regiment to capture a Napoleonic eagle (‘Bejasus boys, I have the cuckoo!’ was the conqueror’s cry). Sadly, this was stolen a long time ago, but you can see the tattered banners which commemorate service at Ava, in India, Egypt, the Crimea, the Boer War, Ypres, Gallipoli. Regimental colours are always consecrated before use and, even when decommissioned, never deconsecrated, which is why they end up in churches. How long before this custom is ruled illegal by the High Court?

•••

Because he is doing a good job, and because the coalition makes reshuffles uncomfortable, Paterson stands a better chance than his shifting Labour predecessors of holding his post until the next election. This sense of stability allows Hillsborough to come alive again. Security permitting, Paterson wants there to be even more public access. We walked round the sleeping 90-acre giant of a garden, which is to be improved in time for the Diamond Jubilee. Indoors, we sat in the drawing-room beside a real fire — something that has not been seen since the days of the Governors 40 years ago. Northern Ireland, David Trimble famously admitted, was once ‘a cold house’ for Catholics. For this (admittedly unindigenous) Catholic, its undeniably Protestant heart felt warm.

•••

Thank you, readers, for your reports on ‘Radio Twee’. Here is Sarah Mohr-Pietsch: ‘Of course Bach didn’t mind about dying, because in those days people believed in Heaven and thought they were going there.’ More, more.

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