For the second time in my life I have received a letter bearing the distinctive portcullis crest of the House of Commons.
When I arrived home yesterday I was told that there was ‘an official-looking letter’ awaiting me. Now, a pessimist would think that the Child Support Agency or the DWP had finally caught up with him, but, ever the optimist, I naturally assumed that one of my Premium Bonds had at last won me a million pounds.
But no. Instead this was the second time in my life that I have received a letter bearing the distinctive portcullis crest of the House of Commons.
THE FIRST TIME was a reply from Richard, later Sir Richard, Body, MP for Boston. It was around the time Edward Heath was traitorously doing what Napoleon and Adolf Hitler had failed to do, namely hand over UK sovereignty to a European empire. Strong words, I know, but I feel strongly about it.
I wrote to Body, MP for Boston and therefore mine, who was one of the few anti-Common Market MPS on the Tory benches, encouraging him to stand firm.
By this time I was a regular voting Conservative supporter, but in 1974 I voted Labour purely on the basis of their promise to hold a referendum on continued membership of what was then called the EEC, or maybe the EC. The name kept changing in order to downgrade the economic element of the ‘project’.
It was never just economics, of course, whatever Ted Heath and the eurofanatics would have us believe. Two things have stuck in my mind from all the arguments in the early 70s about Europe. One was Ted Heath patronisingly telling us that we would still be able to drink tea. And saying that sovereignty was worth ‘sharing’ – ‘shared sovereignty’? Now there’s an oxymoron, and as daft an idea as a shared bank account – in order to gain some sort of commercial advantage. In other words, sell your birthright for a mess of potage.
And here we go again. The perfidious constitution is likely to be slipped in through the back door, disguised as ‘an amending treaty’. We are told that the ‘constitutional elements’ will be dropped, namely the anthem, the flag and the motto. They’ll all still be used, as they increasingly have been, but it won’t be written down anywhere. I think we’re back to tea-drinking here, because it appears that a log-term president, a foreign minister and an extension of qualified majority voting and a reduction in the right of veto will be there. And by this sleight of hand we will be denied a referendum, which would undoubtedly be negative.
MY MORE RECENT LETTER was from Douglas Hogg, whom I e-mailed about the old Ghurkha VC who wished to resettle in Britain and benefit from better medical attention. I wrote to protest at the Foreign Office’s denial of his request. As it happened, the FO recanted pretty quickly.
Hogg’s full title is ‘The Right Honourable Douglas Hogg, QC, MP, and Viscount Hailsham.’ This was on the compliments slip attached to his letter and reminded me of the days when I first became interested in politics. This was 1963, (as it happens also the year when one of my greatest friends was born), when the Conservative government was not only tottering with fatigue and scandal but also found itself without a leader.
Douglas Hogg’s father, Quintin, took advantage of the new law allowing him to disclaim his peerage, so that he could run for the Tory leadership. It didn’t do him any good, because the Earl of Home ‘emerged’ as the new and short-lived Prime Minister. He waited until he succeeded before giving up his peerage. A more circumspect character, it would appear. I rather think that Quintin’s action counted against him, because it wasn’t really the done thing to run quite so blatantly for office.
However, he went on to sit in the Commons and, when he was appointed Lord Chancellor, he had to be given a life peerage because a peerage, once renounced, is lost for your lifetime. I always thought it was gone forever, but not so. It is revived for your heir. Douglas, himself an MP when his father died in 2001, succeeded as the third Viscount but was able to remain an MP because by this time a peer no longer had the automatic right to sit in the House of Lords. I suppose if Douglas is ever rewarded with a seat there when he retires he will have to be made a Life Peer and end up with two titles.
Another point of interest, to me at least, is that the Hoggs rotate christian names - Douglas, Quintin – as the Churchills alternate Winston and Randolph. Nice idea.
When I arrived home yesterday I was told that there was ‘an official-looking letter’ awaiting me. Now, a pessimist would think that the Child Support Agency or the DWP had finally caught up with him, but, ever the optimist, I naturally assumed that one of my Premium Bonds had at last won me a million pounds.
But no. Instead this was the second time in my life that I have received a letter bearing the distinctive portcullis crest of the House of Commons.
THE FIRST TIME was a reply from Richard, later Sir Richard, Body, MP for Boston. It was around the time Edward Heath was traitorously doing what Napoleon and Adolf Hitler had failed to do, namely hand over UK sovereignty to a European empire. Strong words, I know, but I feel strongly about it.
I wrote to Body, MP for Boston and therefore mine, who was one of the few anti-Common Market MPS on the Tory benches, encouraging him to stand firm.
By this time I was a regular voting Conservative supporter, but in 1974 I voted Labour purely on the basis of their promise to hold a referendum on continued membership of what was then called the EEC, or maybe the EC. The name kept changing in order to downgrade the economic element of the ‘project’.
It was never just economics, of course, whatever Ted Heath and the eurofanatics would have us believe. Two things have stuck in my mind from all the arguments in the early 70s about Europe. One was Ted Heath patronisingly telling us that we would still be able to drink tea. And saying that sovereignty was worth ‘sharing’ – ‘shared sovereignty’? Now there’s an oxymoron, and as daft an idea as a shared bank account – in order to gain some sort of commercial advantage. In other words, sell your birthright for a mess of potage.
And here we go again. The perfidious constitution is likely to be slipped in through the back door, disguised as ‘an amending treaty’. We are told that the ‘constitutional elements’ will be dropped, namely the anthem, the flag and the motto. They’ll all still be used, as they increasingly have been, but it won’t be written down anywhere. I think we’re back to tea-drinking here, because it appears that a log-term president, a foreign minister and an extension of qualified majority voting and a reduction in the right of veto will be there. And by this sleight of hand we will be denied a referendum, which would undoubtedly be negative.
MY MORE RECENT LETTER was from Douglas Hogg, whom I e-mailed about the old Ghurkha VC who wished to resettle in Britain and benefit from better medical attention. I wrote to protest at the Foreign Office’s denial of his request. As it happened, the FO recanted pretty quickly.
Hogg’s full title is ‘The Right Honourable Douglas Hogg, QC, MP, and Viscount Hailsham.’ This was on the compliments slip attached to his letter and reminded me of the days when I first became interested in politics. This was 1963, (as it happens also the year when one of my greatest friends was born), when the Conservative government was not only tottering with fatigue and scandal but also found itself without a leader.
Douglas Hogg’s father, Quintin, took advantage of the new law allowing him to disclaim his peerage, so that he could run for the Tory leadership. It didn’t do him any good, because the Earl of Home ‘emerged’ as the new and short-lived Prime Minister. He waited until he succeeded before giving up his peerage. A more circumspect character, it would appear. I rather think that Quintin’s action counted against him, because it wasn’t really the done thing to run quite so blatantly for office.
However, he went on to sit in the Commons and, when he was appointed Lord Chancellor, he had to be given a life peerage because a peerage, once renounced, is lost for your lifetime. I always thought it was gone forever, but not so. It is revived for your heir. Douglas, himself an MP when his father died in 2001, succeeded as the third Viscount but was able to remain an MP because by this time a peer no longer had the automatic right to sit in the House of Lords. I suppose if Douglas is ever rewarded with a seat there when he retires he will have to be made a Life Peer and end up with two titles.
Another point of interest, to me at least, is that the Hoggs rotate christian names - Douglas, Quintin – as the Churchills alternate Winston and Randolph. Nice idea.
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