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Afterword
Writing a speech can involve many hands and so there are many people to who I am grateful for translating my not always coherent comments into formal speeches. Others have contributed finished texts and remained silent as I butchered them under the guise of editing them. May I thank all who helped including, Graham Gudgin, Ray Hayden, David Kerr and Stephen King. Some of those who so generously helped wish to retain their anonymity: to them I say a very special word of thanks. Some other contributors must be “outed”.
The preparation of the speech introducing President Clinton at the Waterfront was complicated by the recall of Parliament to consider emergency legislation introduced in the Omagh bombing. A draft speech had been prepared, I commented on it and it was being revised when I went to Westminster for the debate, which was held the day before the Clinton visit. The debate went into the night. I was only able to stay because the Prime Minister offered me a lift in his aircraft the next morning. The second draft of the speech arrived by fax during the evening but I was unable to look at it until I arrived at RAF Northolt at 06.30 am. I had finished revising it when the Prime Minister arrived.
During the flight I was sitting across a small table from the Prime Minister, who was working at some papers. Alister Campbell was sitting across the aisle writing. Campbell then threw a paper in front of Tony Blair. He looked at it, wrote on it and then tossed the paper to me saying, “There some things you could say today”. The paper contained about a paragraph. I said that it was not bad, but I had a passage in my speech to the same effect. I passed over to him the text pointing to part of it. The Prime Minister looked at my text, said, “It’s not bad”, and then nodding his head towards Campbell said “But he’s got a way with words.” “Let me have another look at it”, I replied reaching for both bits of paper, considered them for a moment and said, “There’s no harm in repeating things.” I then inserted the Campbell/Blair paragraph into my speech.
I tried in the speech to strike a balance between reminding Republicans of their obligations under the Agreement, particularly with regard to decommissioning, and also stressing the aspect of the Agreement, the opportunity for Republicans to cross over into democratic politics. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were seated in the front row, and when I came to certain passages, I angled myself at the podium so as to be able to look at them and my text at the same time. Some media types who have tended to sympathetic treatment of Sinn Fein criticised my speech for being “too political” – as if a speech on such an occasion could ever be anything else – apparently there had been too much reference to decommissioning for these commentators. It amused me that one of these “too political” passages was penned by the Prime Minister and his Press Secretary, although I shall leave the reader to guess which!
In 1998 I addressed the Ulster Young Unionist Conference. As the introductory paragraph indicates I did not have time to prepare either a full text or even a short press release. The comments printed above were delivered “off the cuff” without any notes at all. Any coherence is because I rounded up a few of my hobby horses and gave them canter over the field.
I knew that most, but not all, the audience were critical of the Agreement, but rather then get into an argument over the detailed merits of the Agreement, I tried to explain my approach to politics generally and touch on where Unionists had failed in the past. I hoped in this way to encourage them to think about how we achieve our goals, rather than simply repeat slogans. Unfortunately, to judge by the approach adopted by the UYUC conference the following year, I did not succeed.
I am deeply indebted to Eamon Mallie who taped my remarks in the hope that they would supply him with a worthwhile quote. Whether they did I do not know, but later he very generously supplied me with a transcript of my remarks. I have tidied up the text, but have not omitted or changed anything of substance.
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