[4] He embraced the epithet "West Brit";[5] at a debate, when an opponent accused him of being "to the Right of Douglas-Home", he retorted that he was "to the Right of Lord Salisbury".

[6] He claimed that his grandfather, a warden in Mountjoy Prison, had beaten up Kevin Barry, a Republican rebel executed in 1920.

[6] Having freelanced for Raidió Teilifís Éireann while at UCD, he was appointed their London correspondent in 1968,[1] before working at the Conservative Research Department from 1969, where he became a Zionist.

[3] He became political editor of The Spectator in 1971,[2] where his numerous, often scathing, articles about Edward Heath's leadership were influential in effecting the change to Margaret Thatcher,[1][5] and earned him the nickname "The Mekon".

[1] When Thatcher first saw him speaking on television, she reportedly dismissed him as a "typical upper-class public school twit", to his obvious delight.

[6] However, Thatcher dropped him after winning power in the 1979 general election,[2] by which time his heavy drinking was impairing his reliability.

[2] He had first attracted Rowland's attention in 1973 after criticising in The Spectator Ted Heath's calling Lonrho "the unacceptable face of capitalism".

[9] Martin Seymour-Smith derided the book, but Lowell agreed with Cosgrave's criticism of "Mr Edwards and the Spider", and dedicated a rewritten version to him.