Yesterday, the present (ninth) Duke of Wellington proposed the latest Remainer amendment in the House of Lords, which removes the date of leaving the EU from the Bill. He is the most politically engaged Wellington since the first one, so it was nice to see him. But I wish he had called to mind his great ancestor’s behaviour over the Corn Laws. Wellington strongly opposed repeal, but when Peel backed it in 1846, the Duke urged peers to submit. They could not afford to cut themselves off from the Commons, he told them. He thought the good government of the country more important than any particular Bill. Should peers feel grander now than in 1846?
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