Elections come, elections go, some MPs stay and others have to depart. It is most unlikely, however, that there will ever be a return to the cosy arrangement that obtained for long periods in the 1950s and 1960s when all the Northern Ireland seats at Westminster were held by the undivided Ulster Unionist Party.
In those days there were only 12 constituencies. The Unionist members had an unswerving, almost filial allegiance to the Conservative Party. They were as dependable in the division lobbies as the Tory chief whip himself. To vote other than with the Tories was as unthinkable as taking part in a demolition job on the Walls of Derry.
Their loyalty was ill-rewarded. In 1960, for instance, they approached the then Home Secretary, Rab Butler, who had responsibility for the North's affairs at Westminster, and asked him to arrange a debate on the high and soaring unemployment figures - not an unreasonable request as the last debate on the North had taken place five years previously. Butler's platitude
Months passed and Butler did nothing. The party's face was saved by a stroke of luck when one of its members was successful in the ballot for private members' motions and a three-hour debate took place. Butler, the only Government speaker, offered no assistance for the North's many problems but satisfied the Unionists when he platitudinously told them : "Your border is our border, your soil is our soil."
The 12 Unionists were regarded by the other members as a rum lot. They did not sit as a party en bloc, but mingled with the Conservatives on the back benches. Their leader at the time, Sir David Campbell (South Belfast), a former lieutenant-general of Malta, was a modest and retiring man and, typically, sat in the corner of the last back bench furthest removed from the Speaker's chair. He was dubbed "the quiet knight", a title he did not rush to disown. By contrast, his colleague Capt L.P.S. (Willy) Orr (South Down), always tried to grab the seat just across the gangway from the Government front bench - the seat traditionally reserved for Sir Winston Churchill. This enabled him to capture the attention of the public gallery, for when the old warrior limped towards his seat on his walking stick, the bold captain would stand and bow formally to the approaching Winston before retreating to the back benches. What rapture he would have enjoyed if there had been television cameras in the House at the time.
Capt Orr was a professional politician and a lobbyist (a rare animal in politics at the time) for the radio industry. He was Grand Master of the Orange Order in England and he revived the House of Commons Loyal Orange Lodge No.1688, which had been founded by Edward Carson and Lord Craigavon. Its membership was composed of a few Unionist MPs, such as George Currie (North Down) and Stanley McMaster (East Belfast), and a crowd of hangers-on who had nothing to do with Parliament. Orr, Currie and McMaster were all graduates of Trinity College, Dublin, as was Mrs Patricia McLaughlin (West Belfast), who started up a women's lodge at Westminster to accompany the men on their ceremonial marches.
Underwear query
Mrs McLaughlin was married into the McLaughlin and Harvey building empire. She was a tireless publicist for the North's declining textile industry and boasted publicly that every stitch of clothing she wore was made of Irish linen. An ungallant Labour member was once prompted to inquire if she bought her underwear at Marks and Spencer or Moygashel.
Somewhat less orthodox than the Trinity-educated Orange quartet was Montgomery Hyde (North Belfast). He lived in Surrey, wrote books and had (for an Ulster Unionist) liberal views on dangerous subjects such as capital punishment and homosexuality. A bon-vivant, he had little concern for the mean streets of North Belfast and looked upon the constituency as a prize that had to be fought for at general elections.
He once penned an article for the Spectator on the virtues of religious tolerance. In the next issue there was a letter from Sam Watt, the Northern Ireland Labour Party candidate for East Belfast, recalling that at the previous general election there were loudspeakers mounted on Montgomery Hyde's campaign lorry blaring out the familiar Belfast ditty: "We'll buy a penny rope/ And hang the f------ Pope/ On the Twelfth of July/ In the morning."
It is unlikely that Col Robert Grosvenor (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) ever descended to such vulgarity in his campaigns. Tall, immaculately clad and with the confident superiority that only an Eton education can give, he had a fine London town house in Grosvenor Street, just of Grosvenor Square, owned by his family (the street and the square as well as the house), as well as a mansion near the border outside Enniskillen. He delighted in referring to his neighbours in the Republic as "foreigners".
Modest promotion
In my time as a political correspondent at Westminster he was one of only two Ulster Unionists to get modest promotion. He was appointed parliamentary private secretary to the Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd. Later he succeeded to the title of Fifth Duke of Westminster. The other member to gain promotion was Knox Cunningham (South Antrim), a hefty, genial six-footer who had been heavyweight boxing champion at Cambridge. He surrendered a valuable practice as a barrister in the Admiralty Division to become parliamentary private secretary to the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan.
No such elevation awaited George Forrest (Mid-Ulster). A Tyrone auctioneer, he was reputed to have the loudest voice at Westminster, but it was heard once only in the Commons - when he made a short maiden speech. He never opened his mouth again in the House. Would that some of the new crop would follow his example.