“Alastair?- it’s Danny.

Hello Danny…Danny who?

DeBurgh! Templepatrick- Can you  speak?

Sure, there’s  patients waiting but I’ve always time for an Official Unionist.

Good man. Has all that unpleasantness gone away? That stuff with Hart and the PSNI?

Oh yes, complainants under the bridge!

Well the thing is that the jolly old stately home is a bit of a bind, bit of a thingy round the neck, if you know what I mean….what’s the word…raven?

Albatross, Danny

Oh yes and I was wondering if we might join forces to create a lobby firm.

Jesus, Danny, if the Prods of south Antrim hear about that you’ll never be re-elected!

Yes, well OK but I’m not getting any younger and the MP thing was a bit of a surprise to me as well as everyone else.

Well, kiss goodbye Danny, when Paul gets wind of this , you’re toast!

Yes, well back to the business in hand…you up for it?

Of course I am, you know me-and you have a third player, is that right?

Yes, decent chap, media wallah..

Lets go for it- just one thing, you have a lot of people in your constituency who lost loved ones during the Troubles, isn’t that right?

Yup

Sefton , pain in the ass, former barrister, campaigns about his dead parents and Libya?

Yup

What will he think- are you going to lobby for him?

Don’t be daft Alistair- this is business, as my Jewish friends say..

So what if he rings up, looking for help?

We’ll tell him that this is a high profile firm “able to engage at the highest levels on behalf of clients”

Like the Blues and Royals?

Precisely -No working class unionist muck here  old boy.

But wasn’t one of your friends killed?

Yes, of course but we superior chaps have learned to live with that. Fortunes of war and all that. Stiff upper lip and all that.

Sefton  says that his ancestors fought for the Crown since 1605.

Maybe but canon fodder old chap, Like your MLAs . Stupid campaign re Libya. Doesn’t he know that there are fortunes to be made in oil? My old man made a fortune in lemonade- imagine what you could make in oil.

OK count me in- I miss London and the grub.

Splendid, lets meet in the Guards Club, they let Ulster  Nationalists in now.