BACK in the 1970s, whenever one drove anywhere near Willie Whitelaw’s home at Ennim, near Blencowe, there was a rustling movement in the bushes.

As the first Northern Ireland Secretary, the Penrith and Border MP, never a man to shirk his duty, became a prime target for IRA terrorists and security was ever present around his Cumbrian property.

Whitelaw was a man of old-fashioned virtues of decency and high moral and physical courage. He won the Military Cross as a tank commander in Normandy during the war and, in taking on the Ireland role, he accepted the most poisoned chalice in politics at that time.

It now appears that the British government, and by implication Willie Whitelaw, were part of a secret deal between ministers, police and the Catholic Church, to allow a priest, prime suspect in a bombing outrage, to escape arrest. Details of an official cover-up were revealed in a damning report published this week by Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Al Hutchinson which concluded that failure to investigate the priest was wrong.

You have to consider what happened in the context of the time. Northern Ireland was in ferment and Willie Whitelaw, the pragmatist, was juggling comments about facing ferocious terrorism with equal ferocity while trying to bring different shades of the political spectrum together. In hindsight it’s a shocking revelation, but it should not in any way tarnish Willie Whitelaw’s reputation as a man of honour and bravery who did his best in impossible circumstances.

WHEN PARENTS TRY TO HELP

PARENTS, eh? Sometimes they can be a right embarrassment. Like the touchline dads yelling at their kids at junior football matches on Sunday mornings. Or the overpowering mums trying to turn their young daughters into mini-grown ups. Sometimes mums and dads just don’t know when to leave well alone.

It’s obvious that Kirstie Day is the apple of her father’s eye. She’s 18 years old, blonde and rather pretty and she recently won the title of Miss Cumbria. Well, any dad would be proud.

But Kirstie’s father, who happens to be commercial director of the Edinburgh Woollen Mill’s 500 clothing stores, has apparently taken his adoration a step further by instructing staff to vote for her in the Miss England competition.

A spokesman for the firm denied the e-mail had been sent by Kirstie’s father, Philip, and added it was “expected to be confidential”. You bet it was. But there’s no way you can keep something like that a secret when it’s known to thousands of workers. Whatever the facts, Kirstie’s voting tally has soared. If she wins the public vote, and she’s currently leading, it guarantees her a place on the 20-strong shortlist for the Miss England finals.

There is a positive side to the voting because a proportion of the money raised goes to a children’s charity. And it’s all a rather harmless silly season story really. But next time I bet young Miss Day will say to her dad, “Thanks for the support, but if you don’t mind I’ll do this my own way.” Then at least no beaten contestants can claim that she only won because her dad was bigger than anyone else’s dad!

THE CUTTING EDGE OF HEALTH AND SAFETY

AT first sight it seems to be one of those nonsensical health and safety stories. Gardeners have been banned from cutting grass in the moat of Carlisle Castle because H&S chiefs say it is too dangerous.

Easy to lay the finger of blame on English Heritage. After all it seems ludicrous that workmen can’t trim a bit of overgrown grass in a dry moat. Health and safety gone mad again.

But wait. That same English Heritage caught a cold earlier this year when a woman sued it after falling into the moat at 2am. The organisation paid out over £50,000 in legal costs and damages to the female trespasser.

Once again it was the lawyers who made a few quid on the case and another perfectly barmy example of the compensation culture left people shaking their heads in perplexity.

Rather than criticise English Heritage for its weakness, we should be pointing the finger at the woman who should not have been there in the first place and the legal culture that allows people like her to make a quick buck.

No wonder afternoon television is permeated with adverts for injury lawyers. People lazing at home watching afternoon telly must think we were all born yesterday and that they only have to contrive some stupid slip and a sprained ankle to walk away with a handsome cheque.

English Heritage says it stopped cutting the steep banks in the area of the castle moat on the advice of health and safety experts. Our wonderful coalition Government has produced a stream of policy in its first 100 or so days. The incredible stupidity of some health and safety laws could do with its urgent attention next.

Health and safety was designed to protect people who were victims of serious negligence, not to provide a bank for smart lawyers and devious litigants. No wonder organisations like English Heritage are running scared of even tackling the simplest of maintenance tasks.

And it’s not just here. At Sherborne Abbey in Dorsey permission is being sought for a £30,000 grass path to enable worshippers to avoid cobbles which have been trodden outside the medieval abbey for 1,300 years. Councillors worry that someone will trip and sue them.

Whatever happened to the idea of people taking care and responsibility for themselves?

BLOOD MONEY, WHICHEVER WAY TO YOU LOOK AT IT

WHICHEVER way I look at it, I can’t resist the view that Tony Blair’s £5 million gift from the proceeds of his book to the Royal British Legion is “blood money”.

More’s the pity that, having sent our soldiers into action poorly equipped and then failed to properly fund rehabilitation centres for the severely injured, it has taken until now for this rather abject gesture.

I do not blame the RBL for taking Blair’s money. A new centre for troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan is needed even if the provenance of the cash is dubious.

Blair’s goose was cooked the day after 9/11 when he stood squarely alongside George Bush as the US President pledged to root out terrorists wherever they were hiding.

The commitment to supporting the Americans in the “war on terror” was implicit. Even when the intelligence looked flawed, the dossier dodgy, our Prime Minister convinced Parliament that we should follow the United States on its ill-founded adventure into Iraq.

We now know that the case for war was false. British and American forces lost their lives, Untold thousands of innocent Iraqis have died. Dr. David Kelly died, too. And are we leaving Iraq a better place, safer and more secure? Hardly.

Yes, they got rid of Saddam Hussein. But there are dozens of tyrants, some infinitely more bloodthirsty, dotted around the globe who have never been threatened with invasion.

Blair, the great actor, fluffed his lines when it came to sending us to war. The consequences have been immeasurably appalling. Whatever his book says about it, “blood money” it is. Giving the proceeds away is the least this very rich former PM can do, although he can never truly make amends for his warmongering actions.