Ulster didn't fight for right

Spectator, The, Jun 21, 2008

Sir: For 30 years the Protestant people and culture of Ulster sought British help as the IRA tried to destroy them both. For 30 years mainland Britain defended, subsidised, protected, supported, guarded and upheld the Protestant community, politically called the Ulster Unionists. The overwhelming majority of that support came from the British Conservatives, with any support for the IRA coming from the British Left.

Last week in the House of Commons the Tories asked for a bit of loyalty from Ulster to defeat Gordon Brown. The reply of the Unionist rump, the DUP, was to sell their votes to Brown for a mess of pottage. The Tories will one day come back to office and the DUP sell-outs may discover those nine votes were the most expensive they ever sold. Loyalty is a two-way street and only the degenerate cannot see that.

But it gets worse. All that day it was known that Gordon Brown was in conclave with the DUP, seeking to bribe them to vote his way.

Everyone in the House knew that. Why did the Conservative leadership not move in and stop it? Was it this that made David Davis, a very passionate man and a non-stop fighter, so utterly exasperated?

Frederick Forsyth Hertford