A grandee passed this way

A Tory grandee has died but the dear departed has received little attention. I refer to Patrick (Lord) Cormack whose parliamentary career spanned several centuries. I can’t say I knew him intimately, indeed I can’t really say I knew him at all (our clubs never crossed—Ackroyd Street Working (sic) Mens Club and the Carlton didn’t have a reciprocal arrangement) but where our interests did converge was in the All Party Parliamentary Arts Group. This was one of the great privileges for me of being an MP, since we were often invited to events and previews, and Patrick would, with his jowly gravitas make a little laudatory speech each visit, e.g. in honour of the Tate or the National Gallery, extolling the virtues of culture. His Wikipedia entry had him down as a wet and a Heathite. I can imagine him singing some Schubert lieder with Heath at the piano in the No. 10 flat. Not quite Thatcher’s kind of Tory because so far as I can tell Thatcher had no appreciation of high culture whatsoever. He may have been a Tory, but I suspect he understood the value of the arts, a sensibility nowadays largely absent among Tory MPs, whose understanding of the subject is constrained entirely by the dreaded word ‘woke.’ Patrick will now rest in peace, probably haunting a box at the Royal Opera House. His Wiki entry amused me when it recorded that at a constituency selection meeting, the result was disallowed because more votes had been recorded than there were electors. Starmer take note! (Got that one in.)