A bad bargain
Sir: It was fascinating to learn that Lord Irvine, whose most famous act as Lord Chancellor has been to spend £59,000 of taxpayers' money on wallpaper, is to spend £60,000 p.a. of taxpayers' money on an aide to make us understand him better.
This news prompts the question, will the taxpayer gain greater benefit from the wall- paper or a year's education about the Lord Chancellor at equivalent cost?
The first reaction is that though many a pineapple may be grown to bloom unseen, the wallpaper wins hands down, but on reflection I am less sure. Lord Irvine's sec- ond most famous act has been to compare himself to Cardinal Wolsey — pure folly according to most. But the aide will be able to emphasise the undoubted similarities between the two: the prerogative of Wolsey was to preside over hanging, drawing and quartering and Lord Irvine has surely presided over the drawing and hanging, if not the quartering, of the wallpaper. The greatest challenge for the new appointee must, however, be to explain the true import of the Lord Chancellor's third most famous performance, his invective against legal fat cats, of whom he was one of the fattest.
In an attempt to save the taxpayer . £60,000, I offer gratis the simplest and most effective means of improving the Lord Chancellor's image; surely Lord Irvine of Blairg would be more in keeping with the times than his present styling.
Kitty O'Bese
Springfield House, Fordwells, Witney, Oxon
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