But one can’t help feeling that there was more than a touch of symbolism about the manner in which Ted Heath, the Tory leader, came to the problem. He was taking part in the Fastnet yacht race, off the coast of Cork, when he was contacted by radio to discuss the statement which Quintin Hogg, the Tories’ Northern Ireland spokesman, intended to issue on the sending-in of the troops. The toing and froing over the wording of the statement used up so much power that the batteries of the yacht’s engines went dead. Because of the siting of the mast it proved impossible to get at the engine to
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