`I will be using the Irish experience as a particular reason why we should not have PR," said Andrew Mackay, the new Tory spokesman on Northern Ireland following the decision this week by PM Tony Blair to set up a committee under Lord Jenkins, (aka Roy) to investigate how the PR voting system would work in Britain. Mackay told Irish correspondents: "I have always been against it, but my opposition has been strengthened by knowing your TDs through the parliamentary golf association and the British-Irish Interparliamentary Body. It is a bizarre and poor system. Multi-member seats means members of the same party are fighting each other."
Was he hopeful about progress in the North? "Optimism is an excessive emotion when dealing with the problems of Northern Ireland. Neither am I pessimistic. I am a realist.
"I am a unionist and William Hague is a unionist. I understand nationalist aspirations and I am not antagonistic towards them if they do not use violence." Will he be Secretary of State? That was up to the party leader, he said, but the Tories would be back. "With a Labour majority of 179 it seems a very high mountain to climb, but the swing required is relatively modest. They got it by an electoral quirk. Blair received less votes in May than John Major did in '92. Four years is a very long time in politics. There is no God-given reason why we will not win."