Derry Irvine has not gone to pieces, as some former colleagues predicted that he would after being suddenly sacked as Lord Chancellor last June. Friends say that, if anything, he drinks less than he did in government and that his intellect is as sharp as ever.
Convention debars former lord chancellors from practising law after leaving office. This leaves Irvine with time on his hands. He sits assiduously on the back-benches of the House of Lords, always voting with the government. He voted with the government again on Monday night, but could not prevent the Constitutional Reform Bill plunging to defeat.
It is unlikely, however, that Irvine was greatly saddened. Friends say that he is horrified by the inept way ministers made their case, and is in any case privately opposed to most of the reform package. He would hardly be human if he did not take some pleasure in his successor, Lord Chancellor ‘Cheerful Chappie’ Falconer, making such a tremendous hash of things.
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