Lord Kilroy of Silk?

I have been critical of Robert Kilroy-Silk in the past, and then modified my view. Kilroy did at least fill the place in popular culture now occupied by The Jeremy Kyle Show, making it a true example of public service broadcasting. And the man himself did at least make some effort to provide an electoral voice to people who had not sold out Gaitskellism and its broader tradition over Europe any more than over anything else. That, I can assure you, is a risky business.

(Incidentally, we opponents of nuclear weapons have not so sold out, either. The Campaign for Democratic Socialism explicitly supported the unilateral renunciation of Britain’s nuclear weapons, and the document Policy for Peace, on which Gaitskell eventually won his battle at the 1961 Labour Conference, stated: “Britain should cease the attempt to remain an independent nuclear power, since that neither strengthens the alliance, nor is it now a sensible use of our limited resources.”

Unilateral nuclear disarmament did not cause the secession of the SDP, since it did not become Labour Party policy until two years and a General Election after that direct intervention in the British electoral process by a President of the European Commission as such, a true betrayal of Gaitskell, Bevan, Bevin, Attlee, the lot.

For that matter, numerous Tories with relevant experience – Anthony Head, Peter Thorneycroft, Nigel Birch, Aubrey Jones – were sceptical about, or downright hostile towards, British nuclear weapons in the Fifties and Sixties. In March 1964, while First Lord of the Admiralty and thus responsible for Polaris, George Jellicoe suggested that Britain might pool her nuclear deterrent with the rest of NATO. Enoch Powell denounced the whole thing as not just anything but independent in practice, but also immoral in principle.)

I managed to watch the first few minutes of I Want To Be A Celebrity, Get Me Into There. But I doubt that I will be going back. Stephen Fry on the other side was much better. And anyway, it is not really my thing, although I was distinctly taken aback when Joe Swash instantly recognised Dani Behr; he certainly should not have been watching The Word at the age he was then.

However, of Kilroy-Silk, Esther Rantzen and Brian Paddick, who will be ennobled first, why, who should be, and why?