After the new Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward switched allegiance from the Conservative to the British Labour benches in 1999 he was reputed to be the only Labour MP with a butler. Now he has at least two: his butler for his English mansion and his butler at his new Hillsborough Castle residence in Co Down.
Mr Woodward replaces Peter Hain who, contrary to some British tabloid predictions that he would be sacked, remains in the cabinet as secretary of state for work and pensions while also secretary for Wales. Mr Woodward is forgoing his ministerial salary because the new British prime minister Gordon Brown has 22 ministers in his government and according to cabinet rules only 21 ministers can receive salaries.
He will hold on to his MP's salary of £60,000 (€89,000) but must forgo £76,000 per annum. Multi-millionaire Mr Woodward, married to the Sainbsury supermarket heiress Camilla Sainsbury, with family residences also in the Hamptons in New York and on the Caribbean island of Mustique, should manage to endure this hardship.
Mr Woodward (48) defected to Labour to cries of "treachery" following a row with the then Tory leader William Hague over his support for the repeal of Section 28 which banned the promotion of homosexual lifestyles in schools. At the time he appeared to plagiarise Neil Blaney who famously said that he did not leave Fianna Fáil, but that Fianna Fáil left him. "I am not leaving my party, my party has left me," was Mr Woodward's justification for "crossing the floor".
He was then MP in the safe Conservative seat of Witney, now held by Tory leader David Cameron. In the 2001 general election he moved to the safe Labour constituency of St Helens South. He was a staunch Blairite, supporting the war in Iraq, anti-terror legislation and the introduction of identity cards.
Mr Woodward should have little difficulty coming to terms with his new brief as he served under Mr Hain for a year from May 2005 to June 2006 as a junior minister with responsibility for security, health and regional development.
Moreover, like many a Northern Ireland Office (NIO) minister before him, the DUP demanded his resignation. That was in late 2005/early 2006 when he said the IRA was no longer involved in criminality, only to be speedily contradicted by assistant chief constable, now retired, Sam Kinkaid, who told the policing board that it was involved in such crime.
In this, his first cabinet appointment, he faces one key test: doing himself out of a job. That is, achieving agreement, primarily between the DUP and SF, to transfer responsibility for criminal justice and policing from the NIO to the Northern Executive by the St Andrews Agreement target date of May next year. That will be a stiff challenge with Ian Paisley junior saying it can't happen until after 2011 at the earliest. But if he achieves it there will be little left for him or junior direct rule ministers to do.
