Comment Central: (Sir) Teddy...and Alan...and Bill...

Gordon Brown announced yesterday that his “great friend” Ted Kennedy — the figurehead of the US political dynasty — was to receive an honorary knighthood.

Senator Kennedy will get the distinction from the Queen for his services to the Anglo-American relationship and to the Northern Ireland peace process.

In his speech to the US Congress, Mr Brown heaped praise on the senator, saying that Northern Ireland owed a “great debt to the life and courage” of Mr Kennedy.

Times Archive, 1983: Kennedy attacks violence in Ireland

In a statement accompanying the resolution Senator Kennedy said it was his firm belief that violence was not the road to peace

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Honorary knighthoods are awarded after nominations by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Although the formal recommendation came from the British Embassy in Washington, it is likely that Mr Brown had a direct input.

Mr Kennedy, 77, one of Mr Brown’s closest political friends in the US, described him last year as “one of the finest public servants I know”. He said: “I’m honoured to call him my friend. He’s a leader of great principle, integrity and courage.”

Mr Brown had told Mr Kennedy, who has brain cancer, of the award and Patrick Kennedy, his son, thanked the Prime Minister on his behalf at the end of his speech.

The award prompted some criticism in Westminster. Lord Tebbit, the former Tory party chairman whose wife, Margaret, was badly injured by the IRA in the 1984 Brighton bomb, said that Mr Kennedy’s support for Sinn Fein made him an inappropriate recipient. “I regard it as highly improper,” he said. “I can’t believe that his extremely partisan attitude makes him an appropriate person to be given a knighthood.”

Michael Ancram, another former Tory party chairman, also expressed concern. “I was surprised because those who really helped in Northern Ireland, like George Mitchell, made it clear they worked for both parts of the community whereas Ted Kennedy visibly supported one part — the republican movement.”

Mr Kennedy was one of the “Four Horsemen” who from the 1970s worked closely with the Irish Government and John Hume, the Nobel Laureate and former SDLP leader, to counter support for violent Irish republicanism in the United States. In 1977 they persuaded President Carter to make a commitment to provide financial support to Northern Ireland in the event of a peace settlement.

Mr Kennedy was once tipped to follow his brother John to the White House, but any presidential ambition was derailed in 1969 when he drove his car off a bridge at Chappaquiddick, near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. He freed himself, but not Mary Jo Kopechne, who was with him and drowned. He received a two-month suspended jail sentence, but has never spoken frankly about the incident.

Unlike British citizens honoured by knighthoods, Mr Kennedy will not be given the title “Sir Ted”, which is not permitted for foreign recipients. Instead, he will simply be allocated the initials KBE — Knight of the British Empire — after his name.

Leading the way

Winston Churchill, December 26, 1941; May 19, 1943; February 17, 1952

Churchill was hailed by one senator as the greatest orator that the House had heard (Alice Fishburn writes). Perhaps his most famous address was his stirring call to Americans after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941: “Here we are, together facing a group of mighty foes who seek our ruin: here we are, together defending all that which to free men is dear.”

Clement Attlee, November 13, 1945

Attlee’s address shortly after the end of the war was full of gratitude to Britain’s ally and emphasised the importance of the peace. But Attlee also had to defend his own socialist philosophy to a Congress still enamoured with Winston Churchill. “What is our attitude towards foreign affairs? We believe that we cannot make a heaven in our own country and leave a hell outside.”

Margaret Thatcher, February 20, 1985

The popular Prime Minister, above, sought to sell Congress the virtues of Britain as an ally. She focused on the importance of a strong Western alliance in combating the Soviet Union. The growing relevance of Europe received several mentions. “I think that our children and grandchildren may see this period – these birth pangs of a new Europe – more clearly than we do now. They will see it as a visionary chapter in the creation of a Europe able to share the load alongside you.”

Tony Blair, July 18, 2003

Mr Blair delivered his speech in the lull between initial fighting in Iraq and the start of the insurgency. Much of it addressed the growing criticism of the war and those missing weapons of mass destruction haunted the text: “But if our critics are wrong, if we are right, as I believe with every fibre of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have given leadership. That is something history will not forgive.”

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