Memorial to the Irish famine in Dublin. Image, AlanMc
Theresa May’s decision to turn down an invitation to speak in the Irish parliament while sucking up to Trump as he tilts towards fascism reminds me of a story of my friend Dom’s. About a year ago, Al Jazeera got in touch and asked if I knew any Scots in Oxford. I had previously ticked that box, and had been invited to one of Mehdi Hassan’s shows, filmed in the Oxford Union. The format is simple: Hassan and an invited studio audience debate a prominent guest on a matter of the day, then everyone goes for drinks.
I put them in touch with Dom, whose anecdote about that night deserves repeating. The interviewee was Norman Lamont, and he was discussing the then forthcoming European referendum. Dom wandered along after work, watched the debate, and went to the drinks. Lamont was surrounded by suited sycophants, who seemed a little surprised when a young man in a holey T-shirt (“I admit, I was a wee bit scruffy”) and Glaswegian accent stepped forward and asked the former Chancellor a question about the referendum. If they stuttered at this audacity in challenging the great man, there was an audible gasp at Lamont’s response: “Oh... I… I hadn’t thought of that”.
