THE news of the death of Norris McWhirter will sadden everyone who knew him. I last saw him on Twelfth Night 2003 at the Lansdowne Strand at Calne where I had arranged a meeting on the constitution.
He chaired the meeting and we discussed the application of one of the statutes, Praemunite, which makes anyone handing the nation over to a foreign country liable for capital punishment or alternatively to the removal of their property.
The part that applied to religious handover was repealed by Harold Wilson, according to Halsbury's Laws of England, but the part that applies to the executive is not repealed.
A gentle, highly intelligent man, he was also extremely courageous and his friends, his family and indeed the nation, will be losers.
Few men have had the foresight to see the need for a Freedom Association as he did years ago (now run by the retired Member of Parliament, Christopher Gill).
ELISABETH BECKETT
Alston
Northumberland
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