Taking buffoonery to the next level

I MET Baron Kilclooney, pictured, when he was just John Taylor, a man with a badge on his blazer and an Orangeman’s strut – a scion of over-privilege and under-achievement in Northern Ireland.

Not many people liked the former Unionist minister – he annoyed nearly every one I met in the non-unionist community and the few who had to work with him in Stormont tolerated him on sufferance.

However, Dr Steven King, an advisor to former unionist leader David Trimble, urged understanding for Baron Kilclooney, saying: ‘He is more of a big pantomime dame, a preposterous big oaf, not to be taken too seriously.’ The Baron was in the news again last week for tweeting that the Taoiseach had ‘poor manners’ and describing him as a ‘typical Indian’. Leo Varadkar said he thought it was a parody account but then the Baron went on to parody himself. Kilclooney particularly admires Indians, he says, adding that he is no racist. You don’t have to be a racist to be a fool but you have to be an attention-seeking buffoon to be Baron Kilclooney.