Skip to content

Mackay’s decency, intellect and freedom from pomposity – rare in a Lord Chancellor

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

8 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Jimmers
Jimmers
10 days ago

And getting rarer.

grist
grist
10 days ago

Compare and contrast. Mackay and Angela, Rachel, Keith, Ed. I rest my case….

jgh
jgh
10 days ago

I always got Lord Mackay and Fulton Mackay mixed up.

Norman
Norman
10 days ago

Wasn’t he the prison warder in Porridge?

dearieme
dearieme
10 days ago

Perhaps the last highly intelligent man to serve in Parliament.

There’s a tale of John Smith meeting him in a loo at a club just after his appointment was announced.. “Hello, James, I didn’t know you were a Tory.” “Neither did I.”

Reflects great credit on Thatcher, that story.

Bloke in South Dorset
Bloke in South Dorset
9 days ago

He was also the cause of a schism in one of the Scottish Presbyterian churches.

As a member (was he also an elder?) of the “Wee Wee Frees” (itself a breakaway from the “Wee Frees”), he attended the funerals of one of his Catholic judicial colleagues, which as a senior judge he was expected to do, but was against his church’s practices.

Numerous church ministers, congregations and members supported Mackay and left to found their own breakaway church. I don’t think it was ever much more than a couple of dozen congregations, but is now down to a handful.

Bloke in South Dorset
Bloke in South Dorset
9 days ago

A few of his appointments were unfortunate though. I think it was he who first promoted both Baroness Hale (of the dubious Brexit Supreme Court decisions) and Baroness Scotland (disastrous head of the Commonwealth).

Chris Miller
Chris Miller
8 days ago

Babs Hale emerged from Family Division, where the law is 10% jurisprudence and 90% muh feelz. My wife was taught by her at Manchester, she recalls nothing remarkable about her, except that she was sleeping with her (married) boss.

8
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x