In England, if one is having a party, it should be remembered that the Prime Minister comes next in precedence to the Archbishop of York. You’d be surprised how many of my arriviste acquaintances have made a faux pas there. And how a British historian, Charles Townshend, can be fawned on by Irish commentators after making a supercilious remark which suggests he knows little of the historic and current roles of British Prime Ministers.
Those familiar with 20thcentury Irish history will know that Michael Collins was Dail Eireann’s Minister for Finance from 1919 to 1922 and the Republican Army’s director of intelligence. In defence of the Republican institutions (established following a democratic mandate) including Irish state funds, Collins directed the killing of British agents. Townshend, whose name should appear in Berks’ Sneerage expresses surprise that a Minister for Finance should be so naughty.
However an older, and still extant, title for the British Prime Minister is First Lord of the Treasury, and at least from the days of William Pitt, those First Lords have been involved in Homicide, sometimes on a Global Scale, and other times – during the days when Collins was Irish Finance Minister, to the Gibraltar killings and the deployment of Brimstone missiles on a more intimate and personal one.
Donal
How about those links?
This is factually correct from Townshend as far as I can tell without a link.