Some Corner Of A Foreign Field?

Apparently, the Leader of the SDLP had never before worn a poppy to a Remembrance Sunday event. In that case, the SDLP is, as Nationalism in Northern Ireland always is, way behind people from the Republic. Year on year, Louis Walsh has always worn a poppy. Jedward did. Niall from One Direction does. So does Mary Byrne, who, like her mentor, is hardly a malleable teenager. That they are in The X Factor points to the fact that it is watched in the Irish Republic; indeed, there is an audition in Dublin. A very hefty chunk of the votes for Irish acts comes from there. Including during the poppy-wearing season.

Next year will see the firmest ever safeguard of the Union: a Sinn Féin First Minister of Northern Ireland, almost certainly a man who has been more than a little Special for decades. That party could dream of nothing remotely approaching such power in a United Ireland, even if its core voters ever really could be persuaded to vote in favour of charges to visit the doctor, among everything else that would follow with throwing off the comfortable social democracy that is the United Kingdom. George Osborne or no George Osborne, that will certainly remain the case compared to the Irish Republic.

The first Leader of the SDLP ended up as a Peer of this Realm, and its MPs have never had any difficulty in taking the Oath of Allegiance. Ted Kennedy's acceptance of an honorary knighthood was known by everyone who is anyone to have been the pre-agreed dry run for such an acceptance by Gerry Adams. Without the trouble in his family, that would have happened by now. Under Martin McGuinness as First Minister, it may yet happen. And then who? Louis Walsh?

In the meantime, we will of course be helping out the Irish, who are now experiencing something of what would have been their lot during the Potato Famine, a natural disaster, if they had not been able to call upon the resources of the British State. After all, they are family...