Table talk
Sir: Denis Brogan had fun in your issue of 15 November with a misquotation from one of my speeches. I make no complaint of this, but write to reassure any friend(s) I may have that my suicidal tendencies are well in check.
Hansard records me as saying, 'If I had on my conscience what the Honourable Gentle- man should have on his, I should find it hard to live with.' This is minutely, but significantly, different from Sir Denis's secondhand quote. Mea culpa: end a sentence with a preposition and you must take the consequences. One great newspaper with a delicate regard for the susceptibilities of its readers or, less likely, an overriding disbelief that I could submit such a gross error of style, reported the words in the manner recorded by Sir Denis Brogan. Ah well, better perhaps an error of style than one of fact. Sir Denis has made a factual error and, although I am sure his conscience will allow him to live with it, he will forgive me for point- ing it out. Although it is true that the great majority of Ulster Cabinet Ministers have been members of the Orange Ordef, there is not—as he suggests—any requirement that they should be. Nor, by the way, do Unionist MPS at Stormont have to be members of that Order and some are not.
Previous page
