Is it appropriate to give this man an honorary knighthood?

It is not often I have reason to point 'Three Thousand Versts' regulars in the direction of a Daily Mail piece. But this article by Andrew Roberts, who is apoplectic about the decision to award Senator Edward Kennedy an honorary knighthood, is worth reading.

Kennedy has been an implacable foe of our United Kingdom. Charles points out that this is a man who suggested unionists in Northern Ireland "should be given a decent opportunity to go back to Britain".

I have no wish to make myself a regular passenger on the Mail's Outrage Express, but on this particular occasion its anger is justified.

Comments

Timothy Belmont said…
I know, it is all pretty distasteful isn't it? Mind you, when we see life peerages and knighthoods being handed out willy-nilly it is not that surprising.
I threw in my tuppence-worth on the great prelate, Cranmer's column.

Tim
5 March 2009 at 11:08
Anonymous said…
Appropriate? It is completely ridiculous. Are we really so desperate to curry an extra morsel of favour with the new Democrat ascendancy that we even hand out high honours to sworn enemies of our country? It makes us look like puny, weak and an international laughing stock.

Then again, when the country is run by anti-patriots what do you expect?
5 March 2009 at 11:18
Anonymous said…
The war in Northern Ireland is over!! Many people made comments during the 'troubles' that they would not make today. Ted Kennedy's contribution to getting us to where we are today is without question.
There is peace in the United Kingdom! so an honourary knighthood, whether it is of any real significance or not, for people like Ted Kennedy who helped get us here is a small but positive gesture.
5 March 2009 at 11:50
Anonymous said…
I think it rather more interesting that Ted Kennedy is going to accept the honour.
5 March 2009 at 12:33
Anonymous said…
I love the irony and lack of principle in so-called Irish-America.
5 March 2009 at 13:19
Anonymous said…
Irony?
Surely to not accept the offer of an "honour" would be a snub to the Queen?
Right wing extremists would then be complaining about Ted Kennedy for insulting the UK.
Perhaps the "irony" is that Irish America has moved on and accepted that the war is over while the victims of irish america still hold a grudge?
5 March 2009 at 14:55
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Football fever in Russia

Russia Blog is getting excited about Euro 2008. Indeed it is drawing parallels between Guus Hiddink and Peter the Great in terms of successful Russo-Dutch exchanges of expertise. Meanwhile, in Moscow, fans have been taking to the streets in order to celebrate the national team’s achievements.
Read more

Stormont might not collapse but paramilitaries continue to disfigure Northern Ireland

Image
The devolved institutions in Northern Ireland are supposedly ‘teetering on the brink’ of collapse yet again.  After repeated failures to agree a balanced budget or implement welfare reform created months of uncertainty, the Executive’s future is now in doubt because the PSNI believes members of the IRA were involved in murdering a republican hit man.  Despite its apparent seriousness, this particular predicament is unlikely to bring the shaky edifice at Stormont crashing down. The IRA was supposed to have disbanded its military ‘structures’ and decommissioned its entire arsenal of weapons back in 2005.  It was on the basis of this understanding that power-sharing resumed in 2007 and the DUP entered government with Sinn Féin.  From the outset it was a fairly flimsy pretext.   Less than a year after John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian general, oversaw decommissioning, the Independent Monitoring Commission reported that the IRA retaine...
Read more

Walker loada rubbish

Former BBC employee Brian Walker has overrun Slugger O’Toole lately with countless poorly structured, poorly written posts. It is possible quickly to recognize and avoid these by subjecting each Slugger piece to a cursory inspection and identifying those which feature characteristic lack of paragraphing and a tenuous grasp on the technicalities of linking source articles. Although I generally evade Walker’s posts by this method, occasionally (and unfortunately) I have persevered and found that their content is as unrewarding as the style in which they are written. Today, for instance, I inflicted upon myself Brian’s thoughts on a mooted Fianna Fail / SDLP merger . In actual fact, he is right to welcome news that the Southern Irish party has dropped this proposal from its agenda; however, the logic by which he arrives at this conclusion is parochial nonsense. To summarise, Walker believes that pursuing realignment with larger parties, whether they are from the rest of the UK or fro...
Read more