Between Cameron and the Pope

With preparations for the Pope’s visit to Britain in disarray, the government called in Lord Patten to smooth things out. He tells Damian Thompson why he is up to the task

Prime Ministers do not always enjoy reading The Spectator and a month ago we ran a cover story that was — I am told — a ‘real eye-opener’ to David Cameron. We revealed that the Catholic hierarchy in England was hopelessly out of its depth organising the Pope’s visit to Britain and that the event was out of control. Its centrepiece, a Mass at Coventry airport to beatify Cardinal Newman, was about to be cancelled as a result of soaring costs. The first state visit of Mr Cameron’s premiership was in danger. Someone needed to take charge.

Lord Patten will say only that it was ‘around that time’ that he received a call from 10 Downing Street. ‘You had a very good story,’ he says. ‘The Church did have second thoughts about Coventry.’ He launches into a perfectly reasonable-sounding explanation that the trees would have blocked visitors’ lines of sight and that ‘people trampling through fields in the early hours of the morning seemed to be a bad idea’. So, instead, the Church chose Cofton Park, Birmingham, which can handle 80,000 visitors instead of the airport’s 200,000.

Ever the diplomat, Lord Patten — the last governor of Hong Kong, a former chairman of the Conservative party, Chancellor of Oxford University and a prominent liberal Catholic — is playing down the notion that he has been brought in to put out some kind of fire. But, as he speaks, he is seemingly unaware of a letter lying in front of him that tells a rather different story.