Opinions
Fairbairn did however have some views that might be classed as progressive. He was fiercely and personally opposed to capital punishment, after having himself appeared in 17 capital cases. He explained that "As the defending counsel, I am put on trial because, if I make a mistake, ask the wrong question or appear in the wrong way, the man may go to the trap". He was proud of obtaining two royal pardons for wrongful convictions of murder.
In October 1994, along with Alan Clark and Edwina Currie, he immediately told Neil Hamilton to stand down when the Cash for questions scandal broke. Hamilton refused to do so at first, and only resigned five days after the scandal broke, when forced.
During 1994 debates regarding the age of consent in the House of Commons, Fairbairn was called to order by the Speaker after starting a description of the mechanics of sodomy. In the early 1970s, he was an Honorary Vice President of the lesbian and gay rights organisation, the Scottish Minorities Group (now known as Outright Scotland).
Outside Parliament, Fairbairn was a keen painter (and was occasionally spotted drawing cartoons of other MPs during Committee sessions). He was also a gifted landscape gardener, and remodelled the crumbling Fordell Castle into a family home. He was also a member of the Edinburgh Festival Council and the Vice-President of the Scottish Women's Society of Artists.
Read more about this topic: Nicholas Fairbairn
Famous quotes containing the word opinions:
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“What in fact have I achieved, however much it may seem? Bits and pieces ... trivialities. But here they won’t tolerate anything else, or anything more. If I wanted to take one step in advance of the current views and opinions of the day, that would put paid to any power I have. Do you know what we are ... those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society’s tools, neither more nor less.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)
“Only in America ... do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, and walk up and down Collins Avenue in Florida in pedalpushers and mink stoles—and with opinions on every subject under the sun. It isn’t their fault they were given a gift like speech—look, if cows could talk, they would say things just as idiotic.”
—Philip Roth (b. 1933)