A royal visit to give two nations hope

12 April 2012

The Queen's historic visit to Ireland this week is as graphic a measure as one could wish of the transformed state of Anglo-Irish relations. The two countries' troubled history, combined with decades of terrorism, have precluded any such royal visit for a century.

Now, with peace and power-sharing in Northern Ireland, and the UK helping bail out the bankrupted Irish state, relations are probably friendlier than they have ever been.

Nevertheless, the Queen deserves credit for making the trip. The security operation may be unprecedented, but this remains a visit involving personal danger to her.

Dissident republican groups are a shadow of the former Provisional IRA and have not mounted an attack on the British mainland in almost a decade. Yet there have been fresh warnings from the security services and ministers last year raised the threat level to "substantial".

In Ireland, moreover, the threat is immediate. Despite the fact that groups like the "Real IRA" have no political and minimal popular support, they can and do kill. Already today the Irish army has intercepted one "viable" bomb on a bus. The Queen's defiance of that risk, whatever the security blanket, shows courage.

Yet the response of ordinary Irish people to her visit is a measure of how far the extremists are out of touch with the popular mood. While a few express anger at the visit and about historical wrongs, most are glad of the improved relations symbolised by the Queen's arrival. Like her, they embrace the future - not the troubled past championed by a handful of republican die-hards.

Ring-fenced aid

Today's row over international aid is fuelled as much by personal rivalries as by competition over Whitehall budgets. Already the Government's ring-fencing of the Department for International Development's budget has caused resentment among other departments, most of which face savage cuts.

Now, in a letter to the Prime Minister, Defence Secretary Liam Fox has opposed the plan to enshrine in law an overseas aid budget amounting to 0.7 per cent of national income. The leaking of the letter is the latest in a series of spats within the Cabinet and a degree of self interest is involved (Mr Fox's own budget is falling eight per cent by 2015). Nevertheless, the Defence Secretary has a point.

Already the Government's commitment to the aid budget was looking quixotic. Not only do most voters probably see other priorities closer to home, at a time when the NHS and police are making big cuts. There is also mounting criticism of the waste in aid money, not only when it is spent in countries racked by corruption, but when it goes to nations such as India, the largest recipient of bilateral British aid last year (£295million) yet also a major economic power. To tie our aid budget to a particular level, through good times and bad, is at best a meaningless gesture and at worst a serious misallocation of public funds. Mr Cameron should think again.

Mr Huhne's version

The controversy now engulfing the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, is easily resolved if his implied version of events is true. He stands accused of getting his wife to take penalty points for him for a speeding offence committed in 2003. He denies those claims - yet will only say that the allegations are "incorrect". He needs to be clear: was he at the wheel that day, and if not, who was? For unless he is prepared to be completely frank, it is hard to see how he can continue as a Cabinet minister.

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