A Place to Stand

President Barack Obama says the United States has lost "the greatest United States senator of our time"

US Senator Ted Kennedy will be mourned around the world as a champion of equal rights, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday, while ex-premier Tony Blair called him a "true public servant."

"Senator Edward Kennedy will be mourned not just in America but in every continent," Brown said

Back when he was getting his knighthood Simon Heffer in the Telegraph said

I felt sorry for Ted Kennedy when I heard he had a brain tumour. I temporarily forgot the support he gave to IRA murderers during the 1980s and 1990s. Since some nasty people flew airliners into a few buildings in 2001 the Americans have stopped seeing the glamour of terrorism.

Until then, however, Fenian murderers were routinely feted on St Patrick’s Day, and no American welcomed them more warmly than Ted.

Now, for services to gangsterism, he is to get a knighthood. It comes as the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland announces that terrorist activity is rising, despite a so-called ceasefire: Ted’s friends remain drug runners and bank robbers. What wickedness this is, and what an insult to those whose husbands, wives and children were blown up in shopping centres by the IRA.

This from a list of IRA supporters:

KENNEDY, Edward (Ted): US Senator Mass. USA Pro-IRA, anti-RUC Democratic US Senator Left Mary Joe Kopechne to drown in car he drove off bridge after leaving party. Tried to get others at party to take blame before he tried to get help to rescue her.

KENNEDY, John Jr: American IRA supporter Attended funeral of IRA bomber Patrick Kelly

Perhaps Mr MacAskill will make a remark about "higher powers".