Queen's Speech

My Lords, it is always a melancholy occasion to be a member of a party which has been defeated in a general election, but it is an experience I have had several times over the past 60 years. Therefore, I am slightly inured to it and there are always compensations, one of which is to see some of one’s old friends appointed to ministerial positions. Although I am not allowed to call them my noble friends in your Lordships' House, I hope that the noble Lords, Lord Astor of Hever and Lord Howell, will acquit me of impertinence if I say that I like to think of them as great personal friends. I have always admired their patriotism, competence and courtesy. I wish also to extend that to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who is not in his place. It may surprise your Lordships that he was the man who frightened me most when I was at the Dispatch Box a few years ago, for reasons that I have no intention of disclosing. I have to say that I am rather pleased with some of the ministerial appointments. I was delighted that our new Foreign Secretary made it absolutely clear that he thought that the special relationship was extremely important and that our best friends and closest allies were in Washington DC, which has always been my view and I have no hesitation in saying so. I know that in your Lordships’ House the mention of the special relationship can produce toe-curling embarrassment on the part of some of our euro-fanatics, particularly those who are closest to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I am glad to say that it is alive and well. I shall give an illustration. I have always said that the most important parts of the special relationship were invisible, and I still think that. They repose mainly in the relationships between our sets of intelligence services and our technical people and engineers—I am glad to see that the former Minister, my noble friend Lady Taylor, is nodding her head in agreement—which are of frightful importance to this country. I will refer, if I may, to the quite quixotic remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, who, if I heard him correctly, was saying that we should get much closer to the French. I am glad to get his acknowledgment. I wonder if the noble Lord noticed what happened to a certain Admiral Blair in Washington last week. No? That is a pity. Admiral Blair was director of national intelligence in the United States until very recently, but he has just been fired. It is sad; he is a very able man. Why was he fired? There were a few reasons—there have been certain mistakes and imperfections in the intelligence services of the United States—but the thing that apparently provoked the final breakdown was that Admiral Blair wanted to introduce between the United States and France a system of agreement by treaty that neither would spy on the other, a system that the United States has with this country. The person who prohibited Admiral Blair from doing that was President Obama himself. There are lots of people who like to say that our special relationship is a fragile thing, built on superstitious little icons. They love to jeer at the fact that Winston Churchill’s bust is no longer in the central office in the White House that the President uses. I do not know what the room is called—