Conrad Black, the palaverous peer who forfeited his Canadian citizenship for a plush seat in the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster, has been booted by that august chamber, poor thing.
Black – variously known as Baron Black of Crossharbour, Lord Black, and Inmate No. 18330-424 of the Federal Correctional Complex Coleman for his misdeeds – is not to be confused with the fondly remembered racing legend Donald Eugene “Tubby” Black, 17-time track champion at various raceways near Farmington, Missouri, who passed his final checkered flag in September 2013.
By contrast, no one seems to remember the Canadian-born Tubby Black very fondly, even his peerless fellows in the House of Lords, although quite a few of them apparently recall him not at all, so seldom did he darken the door of their chamber.
He is probably best known for installing heated towel racks in his Toronto mansion, which seems like a redundant frippery when one has enough money to pay servants to remove them as soon as they’re damp. Still, Black once had a certain minor cachet as a publisher of moribund newspapers who wrapped his logorrhoea in such magniloquent grandiloquence that credulous conservatives often mistook his turgid ramblings for insight.
According to Baron McFall of Alcluith, Speaker of the House of Lords, the prodigal peer needed to be amputated like a gangrenous limb “by virtue of nonattendance,” an odd way to put it for a personage of so little virtue. But, needs must in such punctilious circles, one supposes.
The axe fell on Tuesday, Lord Alcluith said. It fell so softly that Black claimed in an interview with the CBC Wednesday that he didn’t feel a thing, and indeed knew nothing about it until the broadcaster’s scribbler called. Well, perhaps he forgot to check his email.
Regardless, this obviously means that fulfilling his duty as a member of the Lords mattered considerably less to the Montreal-born Black than did his entry into that chamber in 1999 when he was still a dual Canadian and British citizen.
Black engaged in a vociferous and vituperous two-year squabble with the government of Jean Chrétien, who had been abused regularly by Black’s squalid pifflesheet, commonly known as The National Pest, when the prime minister cleverly recalled that back in 1919 the Canadian House of Commons had passed a resolution asking King George V to, for heaven’s sake, stop bestowing British titles on Canucks.
The resolution may never have been forwarded to the then resolutely royalist Canadian Senate, but it was good enough for Chrétien and anyone who has ever worked in a less-than-exalted position for any of Black’s wretched newspapers.
After a couple of years of trying unsuccessfully to sue the prime minister, Lord Tubby, as he was unfondly known among the ranks for the Fourth Estate, renounced his Canadian passport in 2001 and flounced off to London long enough to take his seat in the Lords.
It turns out he only took his seat 20 times, though, all in the first two years after his appointment. Alas for Mr. Black, that turned out not to be enough.
Black later took up business opportunities in the United States, eventually earning himself a stay in the aforementioned federal institution in Coleman, FL, which, in fairness, would have made casting his votes in the House of Lords problematic for a spell.
He returned to his home and native land after his release from that US prison in 2012. He was granted a pardon by then US President Donald Trump, now himself a felon in his own right, in 2019. At some point in that period, someone seems to have given him his Canadian citizenship back.
If one accepts the merit of the principle of guilt by association, having been recommended for a peerage by Tony Blair (who as prime minister lied Britain into the disastrous Iraq invasion) and pardoned by Donald Trump (whose record as president speaks for itself) is no recommendation for anything, even a seat near the back of the Lords.
Still, recently Black has been heard to muse that he would like to take up his lordly duties there again. “I will be relaunching my career as a legislator,” he told his former organ, The Pest, last year.
Too late.
That said, it would seem he remains a peer, just one without a seat in the Lords. No one seems to have asked if there is any avenue of appeal. Perhaps he could try to sue Sir Kier Starmer.
Then again, if Trump returns to power south of the Medicine Line, as MAGA God-Emperor he may be able to find a legislative sinecure to reward his loyal defender. After all, Caligula is said to have appointed his horse to the Senate. Why not Black as well?
In the meantime, somebody had to take him back. He is our native son, after all, even without his wokely illustrated Canadian passport, and so our cross to bear.
While it may seem as if he never had much loyalty to anything except his own ego, even a ship that flies the flag of whatever jurisdiction offers the most favourable tax loopholes has some scrap value.
We wouldn’t want to have even a former Canadian citizen spending two decades wandering the halls of some airport, deprived of a passport from anywhere, now would we?
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