The Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, gave evidence to the Constitution Committee in the Lords yesterday. It was a wide-ranging session covering a number of constitutional issues. I put a number of questions to him.
The Lord Chancellor knows who I am, and has variously quoted me, but he seems to have problems with my name. He once referred to me in the Commons as ‘Lord Norton of Looth’ (before being corrected by another MP). Yesterday, I thought he kept mis-pronouncing my name, but my hearing isn’t brilliant and I wasn’t certain. My hearing clearly wasn’t that bad. After the session had finished, another member – a historian – turned to me and said: ‘He called you Lord North’, adding: ‘Do you think that’s libellious?’
Calm down dear.. Mr Straw is probably just worried about your reputation as a fearless straight-talker..
http://www.auchi.info/main.htm
He is trying to get a rise out of you, and almost succeeding.
Please don’t give him the satisfaction. But I can see the potential for damage with several Lords Taylor in the House..
Sorry to go on.
Jack Straw knows the law. He knows your name.
He is just sending a ‘shot across the bows’ because you are rocking the boat about wanting to maintain the honesty and integrity of the Lords.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/01/jack_straws_cor.html#comments
Apologies for the repost – but you need to make sure Jack Straw knows that you aren’t going to be bullied for sticking up for what’s right.
A whitewash ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2009/01/yates_of_the_ya.html
Never mind the Parliamentary PR disaster waiting to happen what’s Labour peer Lord Carter of Barnes up to? They are now going to ‘tax’ us because they think we are all pirates. Its a bit much especially when all the surfers here have a letter of marque?
Ref: £20 broadband charge to fight piracy
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5607744.ece
United Kingdom and France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque
While we’re on the subject of apparent silliness, Lord Norton, have you seen this article from your local rag?
http://www.louthleader.co.uk/news/UPDATE-PLUS-VIDEO-FOOTAGE-Tentacle.4847433.jp
It’s apparent that oil interests have aligned themselves with tentacled creatures from mysterious realms, and their first attack was on your home turf. How exciting!
senex – thanks for bringing this to our attention – it sounds rather outrageous !
I don’t think there was anything deliberate in this. The Lord Chancellor could simply have been flustered or have difficulty in remembering names. He’s not the first to have difficulty and I have been called worse things.
I should add that some historians don’t think that Lord North was such a bad prime minister as he is generally made out to be.
McDuff: I am regularly in Louth and I also read the local press; I am very familiar with the story. We do occasionally have unusual happenings in Lincolnshire.
I agree that it is unlikely anything was deliberate, but I think the whole thing was more amusing than anything else. I just think the other member’s response was hilarious.
A topical point of interest:
I remember reading that unlike many politicians of his time–or since–Lord North left politics a far poorer man than when he entered…
From the colonies
FinnishCowl: My view entirely – as well as that of the other member!
Organic Tory: There is a view that Lord North was a much under-rated politician.
I was thinking you should run with it Lord Norton. If the LC thinks you are entitled to the abeyant 1554 barony of North perhaps you should quietly ask for the concomitant upgrade in precedence which would place you ahead of almost every baron in the Lords 🙂
Croft: Well, I am a fairly regular visitor to Lord North’s ancestral home, Wroxton Abbey, in Oxfordshire, and familiar with the North family tree…
Not being such a great historian as many here there may be details about North’s career that would change my mind, but I don’t feel there should be such a great stigma attached to losing an unwinnable war. After all, it’s not like he started it.
Lord Norton: Back in 1995. Phew! It was hot. A lot of people bought water tubs to collect rainwater myself included. I was made aware at the time that the local Water Authority owned the rain that fell on my rooftop and could in theory have charged me by the litre for the tubs contents. Is this the last facet of our feudal past?
I don’t know whether its a Human Right failure or Constitutional shortcoming but surely everybody has a right to keep what is god given without having to pay for it? Given that times are about to become very difficult I find it a horrendous prospect that people who grow their own produce on allotments might be subject to an unfair levy from cash strapped Water Companies. Heaven forbid, that I should rain on anybody’s parade.
Ref: Church begins ‘rain tax’ protest
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7858008.stm
Historically, as per Lord Guilford aka Lord North & the Marquess of Londonderry aka Lord Castlereagh, there are quite a few peers more famous from their courtesy or other titles. Quite a few peers are known in the present house under different titles than their highest title.
The barony of North is slightly odd in that it is heading for permanent abeyance, the sisters of the last holder seem to show no interest in seeking the termination, yet the present day Earls of Guilford have continued to use the barony as a courtesy title even though they lost it 200 yrs ago.
Thinking of title confusion, there are a few peers in the house who are seemingly confused from time to time by other peers and the press. I seem to remember over the abortion time delay votes reading Hansard’s account of one conservative baroness (Lady ABC complaining about being confused with another of opposite views called Lady ABC of Y) The common habit of dropping the territorial designation being the source of the confusion.
(Sorry if this double posts but I’m getting weird ‘you are posting comments too quickly slow down’ despite not having posted in hrs)
McDuff: I agree with your last sentence. Whether it was unwinnable is, I gather, now a point of some contention. Croft: As you indicate, there are quite a few peers with courtesy titles, though the practice is to refer to them by their higher title even though that may not be the title by which they sit in the House. In respect of the North family, the story – as you touch upon – is quite an involved one, with the North title separating from that of Guilford. The North family lived at Wroxton Abbey, just outside Banbury, until the death of the then Lord North in the 1930s. On your point about confusion of titles, you are quite right. I suspect you have in mind not abortion but the age of consent debate in which Baroness Young was on one side and Baroness Young of Old Scone was on the other. The latter opened by saying they were often confused for one another. The rest of her speech was based on this, but unfortunately she was rather put off her stride by Lady Young interrupting her to say that there was no confusion, as she was Baroness Young, and the speaker was Baroness Young of Old Scone! Bsroness Young of Old Scone had intended to say ‘That Baroness Young thinks this, this Baroness Young thinks the other..’ on a number of points, but changed it each time to ‘That Baroness Young thinks this, this Baroness Young of Old Scone thinks the other…’.
Senex: Your comment is a little off-message – even with the historical reference (to a feudal past, that is, not 1995) – but I let it on simply because you express a view I have long held. I don’t see why householders should not be entitled to collect and own the rain that falls on their own property. Deeming it to be the property of a water company may have a sound legal base, but it nonetheless strikes me as ridiculous.
The CofE can charge house owners to repair their church roofs and, to make sure they have a second bite at the cherry, they now want “the government to force water companies to reduce water drainage bills for churches and scout halls.” (see comment from Senex, above, for link).
I wonder how the Lords Spiritual will vote on this? This is wrong, all wrong, for so many reasons.
Heh, funny how just phrasing something differently can change how it appeals to “common sense”.
Lord Norton
Perhaps we could have won the war, perhaps not, although we did have quite a few folks lined up against us. Water under the bridge and all that. On the other hand we were the bad guys and we’ve benefited more, I would argue, from the loss than we would have from most variations on victory.
Sorry to drag up an old post, Lord Norton, but I came across another incorrect version of your title the other day. Apparently this piece is by “Lord Norton of Lout”, who judging from his title sounds like a peer far less hard-working than you!
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/opinion/Lord-Norton-of-Louth-The.4282674.jp
Or is it just a Yorkshire translation?