THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

No backwoods, octogenarian, crypto-fascist Tory is more obscurantist than Lord Irvine

ROD LIDDLE

A. 'cording to Gordon Brown at the weekend, Derry Irvine was so aghast at the size of his £22,000 per year pay increase that it precipitated something akin to a nervous breakdown. 'Please do not foist this unwanted and extravagant financial encumbrance upon me,' the Lord Chancellor wailed, tearing at his hair, mindful of the millions of public-service workers who struggle by each year on a sum much smaller than even his intended pay rise, depositing their pathetic wages at the counters of the likes of Iceland and Aldi, with their desolate acres of frozen, pre-battered comestibles and limited choice of fine wines.

'Derry Irvine did not want this rise,' the Chancellor of the Exchequer solemnly informed the BBC — and thus, he added, gave it up. Or gave most of it up.

However, a day or two later, a different picture emerged. What we learned on Monday was that the £22,000 had been wrenched from between Derry's powerful jaws by the combined weight of Mr Brown and Mr Blair heaving together, with the Lord Chancellor slavering and snarling and clinging on for dear life in the manner of one of those American bullterrier 'devil dogs' which the law insists must be muzzled at all times. The tug-of-war lasted for most of the weekend, reportedly.

Now, it's possible that both versions of what happened may be correct. but only if Lord Irvine suffers from what we journalists, in days gone by, rather carelessly called schizophrenia. Otherwise we are forced to choose between the contrasting scenarios — and I don't know about you, but my money's on scenario number two.

The Lord Chancellor's department, when I rang to confirm my prejudice and also to inquire, gently, about Derry's workload and state of mind, would say only the following about the pay rise: 'It was a personal decision.'

'Yes,' I replied . .. 'but did Gordon and Tony call Derry to persuade him of the very real necessity of making that personal decision?'

'It was a personal decision.'

'Well, did either the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Prime Minister at any time over the weekend threaten to smack him about the ears with a piece of wood or kick him or punch him in the stomach, if he didn't make that personal decision?'

'As I've said, it was a personal decision.' And so on.

And yet, in a way, there was no need for Derry's loyal press people to be so defensive: it is even short-sighted of them to behave in this way. Because despite the acres of vilification heaped upon the Lord Chancellor — ironically, most of it in the right-wing press — there is ample evidence to suggest that Derry is actually. for Spectator readers at least, a rather good thing.

He embodies the essence of conservative values, for a start. Conservative values from about 1452, perhaps, but conservative values nonetheless. For example, he owes his lucrative and powerful position not to anything so crude as election by his peers, or, so far as we can discern, to ideological allegiance, but to simple, straightforward, tried and tested cronyism: he was a friend and employer of the Prime Minister and this seems to be why he now draws £180,736 (rising to £184,736 this year) from the public purse.

His friends might argue that it was raw talent, rather than patronage, which demanded his appointment. Perhaps, perhaps. However, Tony Blair is reported to have said of him, 'Derry lacks guile.' So there you have it; the top law officer in the country, appointed by the PM, 'lacks guile'. Well, excuse me, but as well as a nicely pressed suit, isn't 'guile' a prerequisite for a lawyer?

But Deny seems oblivious to such slings and arrows. In a government crippled by a yearning to be seen to be in step with public opinion, no matter what that public opinion might be, Lord Irvine clearly couldn't give a toss. He is wondrously removed from any notion of either accountability to the public or even the most cosmetic closeness to it. His magisterial pomposity and laudable lack of regard for yer common folk — people to whom New Labour more usually performs paroxysms attempting to secondguess or mollify — are born of a deeply held, utter contempt.

A bit miffed about that Pugin wallpaper at 300 quid a roll? Sorry: it's a case of caviare to the general. I have expensive wallpaper because I'm an important man born to high office, and the idea that I should be forced to wallpaper my rooms with the ghastly materials you might bung up is repugnant.

And then there's the stuff about burglars. Nobody would mind if they were let loose from court having burgled a mere handful of homes, says Derry. And he's right here, too. Because Deny doesn't mean 'nobody' as in

'absolutely nobody.; he means, instead, 'nobody' as in 'nobody of any consequence'. Which is an important distinction. People of sufficient standing — and income — are far less frequently burgled than the untennenschen, laden down with horrible, cheap shopping, waiting in the rain outside Iceland for the bus home. Further, people of sufficient standing are usually far less devastated by the financial effects of burglary on those rare occasions when it does occur than those unfortunates who are apt to consume boil-ina-bag cod in prawn-flavour sauce for their evening's repast.

Let me evidence Lord Irvine's conservative credentials still further. Who was it, on the Labour benches, who scuppered any chance of a vaguely socialistic reformation of the House of Lords? Yep, you've got it. Derry was more opposed to change than even the most feudally inclined, backwoods, octogenarian crypto-fascist who turns up once a year to claim his allowance. And more effective, too. Keep everything the same (apart from his salary) is Derry's abiding conviction.

In the course of stitching up the Lords, he would famously meet Lord Cranborne for a pre-lunch aperitif. 'On no occasion,' said Lord Cranborne afterwards, 'did he fail to consume two bottles of white burgundy to his own gullet.'

Excellent. And then there's this affectionate reminiscence from within my own profession. A famous news presenter was summoned to Derry's lair to secure a rare interview. He took with him a producer. Waiting in the gilded ante-chamber, the two were approached by a cringing Irvine factotum who addressed the presenter directly.

'Lord Irvine,' she announced, 'would like to invite you for a sherry before the interview commences.'

'Oh, lovely,' said the presenter. 'Well be right along.'

'No,' said the lickspittle. 'The invitation is only for you.'

That's Derry; the antithesis of everything New Labour purports to stand for. Anti-egalitarian, anti-change, unmindful of public opinion, snobbish to a degree unattainable, these days, except through caricature — and confident of his inalienable right to sit his fat arse on the woolsack no matter how inept we, the clamouring multitudes, think him to be.

Rod Ladle is associate editor of The Spectator.