Scotland

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The government’s handling of the al-Megrahi affair has been colossally incompetent

From our UK edition

Once one gets beyond one’s revulsion at the British government using the prospect of the release of a convicted mass murderer to grease the diplomatic skids, one is struck by the government’s incompetence during the Megrahi affair. Megrahi is the only man convicted of a bombing that killed 180 Americans—how did Whitehall think that Washington was going to react to his release? The United States is this county’s most important strategic ally and it seems bizarre to strain relations with it in the hope of improving relations with Libya. The correspondence between the Scottish Executive and the British government strongly suggests that if London had been prepared to offer this advice to Edinburgh, Megrahi would not have been freed.

Alex Massie

What If Megrahi Didn’t Have Cancer?

From our UK edition

There's still plenty, I'm afraid, that needs to be said about the decision to send the Lockerie bomber back to Libya. But, since many people think that there was a determination, come what may and regardless of circumstances, to free him let's begin by asking how matters might have unfolded if Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi had not contracted terminal prostate cancer. Would he now be in Scotland or in Libya? Granted, this is a hypothetical but it may not be unreasonable to hazard that it might have gone like this: 1. The UK government and Libya would still have negotiated a Prisoner Transfer Agreement. 2. The Scottish government would still have sought to exclude Megrahi, or, specifically, anyone connected to the Lockerbie bombing from that agreement. 3.

David Blackburn

The Lockerbie papers

From our UK edition

Bill Rammell’s admission that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary told the Libyans that they ‘did not want al-Megrahi to pass away in prison’ is the bombshell the government hoped to avoid. And, together with Jack Straw’s sudden decision not to exclude al-Magrahi from the PTA to protect ‘wider negotiations with the Libyans”, this disclosure requires answers from the government. David Miliband heightened the chaos the government now finds itself in on the Today programme when he very foolishly remarked: “We did not want him to die in prison”.

Alex Massie

Does Donald Trump Need Your House?

From our UK edition

Well, if he thinks he does you should be afraid. This has nothing to do with the absurd "Donald" being American and everything to do with the looming reality that folk will be compelled to sell their homes to accomodate his desire to own an even bigger part of Aberdeenshire. To recap: Donald Trump wants to build a couple of golf courses on the Aberdeenshire coast. He also wants to build nearly 1,000 "luxury houses" on the site. Apparently the main course is supposed to be the "Geatest Course in the World". Well, maybe. It is hard to see how the ghastly holiday village can even pretend to make such a comparable claim. But now the Trump organisation thinks they need more land. Which means they need to buy out a handful of owners who are, rather spendidly, opposed to selling to Trump.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Lockerbie Letters: No Smoking Gun

From our UK edition

I know this won't satisfy anyone who desperately wants there to have been a shady, grubby conspiracy but a quick perusal of the correspondence on the Lockerbie Affair published by the Justice Department, the Scottish Government and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office today gives no support to the notion that there was any such deal*.  The pattern is quite clear: the Scottish authorities weren't happy with a PTA being signed at all but if there was one they wanted the PTA to contain a provision specifically excluding Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi from its terms. London agreed and tried to make a deal with Libya excluding Megrahi. Libya demurred and London relented, permitting Tripoli a "victory" for its own domestic audience.

David Blackburn

Cameron is the winner of the al-Megrahi scandal 

From our UK edition

It is clear that the al-Megrahi release has damaged Labour, not least because their collective refusal to condemn, or at least have an opinion on, the release of the Lockerbie bomber has confirmed that the government is totally out of touch with public opinion. On the other hand, David Cameron has played a blinder. In stark contrast to the Prime Minister’s Trappist monk act, Cameron has led this issue, voicing considered condemnations of Kenny MacAskill’s decision, the government’s reticence and the its supposedly ethical foreign policy. Cameron writes a piece in today’s Times branding the entire affair a ‘fiasco’ and a ‘failure of judgement by the Scottish government...the British government...and the Prime Minister’.

Monday

Alex Massie

Megrahi Release Explained: He’s a Rangers Fan

From our UK edition

Roddy Forsyth deserves our congratulations for revealing this: One of the unforeseen consequences of Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi's incarceration in Greenock Prison was that, by his own account, in whiling away the hours by watching live football on the now-defunct Setanta network he became a Rangers supporter. No surprise that a man convicted of the worst terrorist atrocity in British history would forsake his local team - Morton - to support one of the Gruesome Twosome*. He and Rangers deserve one another. This, mind you, could run and run.

Sunday

David Blackburn

Labour’s tactical blunder

From our UK edition

Mike Smithson has an interesting post with how the fallout from the al-Megrahi affair is damaging Labour. He writes: ‘Where I think that Labour is going wrong here is in trying to cover up what has happened and by hiding behind the Scottish dimension. Why not come out and say that the paramount objective was energy and the need to open up new areas? A reference to Russia’s aggressive energy strategy would underline the point. What’s becoming clear is that the truth will out - why not get in with their explanation first?’ He’s right that Labour have made an enormous tactical blunder by not coming clean over this piece of realpolitik.

Alex Massie

Lockerbie-for-Oil?

From our UK edition

Pete suggests there's little more to say about the Sunday Times story on the UK government's attitude towards the release of the Abdelbaset ali al-Megrahi. The suggestion given by the paper - and increasingly assumed to be true by everyone else - is that Megrahi was freed for fear that keeping him in prison in Scotland would jeopardise potentially £15bn worth of business for BP in Libya. The implication is that, like the war in Iraq, it's all about the oil. Well, we had to reach this point eventually, I guess. Nonetheless, though it's written by my old friend Jason Allardyce, there's a little less to the Sunday Times's story than first appears. That's because the letters the paper has obtained have nothing to do with the decision to actually release Megrahi.

Peter Hoskin

The Libya plot thickens

From our UK edition

So the Sunday Times has got its hands on letters which suggest the al-Megrahi release was tied up with a BP-Libya oil deal, and overseen by the Government with an eye on "the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom".  The ST article deserves quoting at some length: "Two letters dated five months apart show that [Jack] Straw initially intended to exclude Megrahi from a prisoner transfer agreement with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, under which British and Libyan prisoners could serve out their sentences in their home country. In a letter dated July 26, 2007, Straw said he favoured an option to leave out Megrahi by stipulating that any prisoners convicted before a specified date would not be considered for transfer.

Saturday

David Blackburn

Libyagate: first denial, then silence now contradictions

From our UK edition

The Times has obtained confidential correspondence suggesting that, in 1999, Robin Cook assured Madeleine Albright that those found guilty of involvement in the Lockerbie bombing would serve their sentences in Scotland. A senior US official told the Times: “There was a clear understanding at the time of the trial that al-Megrahi would serve his sentence in Scotland. In the 1990s the UK had the same view. It is up to them to explain what changed.” So how do they explain it? Kenny MacAskill claims that US officials urged him against releasing the Lockerbie bomber because Britain had pledged he would serve his serve sentence in Scotland. Seeking clarification, MacAskill wrote to Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis on 22nd July.

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Brown’s hypocrisy over Lockerbie?

From our UK edition

So far, Gordon Brown has refused to specifically comment on the Scottish Government's decision to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi to Libya.  Yes, we've heard that he was "angry and repulsed" by al-Megrahi's reception in Libya, and that our government had "no role" in the decision.  But there's been nothing on whether he actually agrees or disagrees with the Scottish government's actions. The official excuse has been that Brown has to respect the devolution settlement and can't comment on devolved matters.  But - what's this? - it seems he hasn't had a problem with commenting on another devolved matter before now: the level of health spending set by the Scottish Government.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Kentucky Fried Chicken Disappoints Glaswegians

From our UK edition

  According to the Los Angeles Times, KFC are bringing new finger-lickin' goodness to market. This is the "Double Down" a sandwich made from: two Original Recipe fillets, bacon, Swiss and pepper jack cheese and something called the Colonel's sauce Sounds delicious! But why are they testing this exciting new product in Rhode Island and Nebraska and not in Glasgow? It can only be because they know it will be a hit amongst Glaswegians and need to discover if non-West-of-Scotlanders will show comparable enthusiasm for a breadless meat sandwich...

David Blackburn

Delicately poised in Scotland

From our UK edition

Despite a week of international codemnation, a YouGov poll shows that 42 per cent of Scottish voters still agree with Kenny MacAskill’s decision to release al-Megrahi, whereas 51 per cent oppose it. Channel Four’s Gary Gibbon notes that this undermines Labour’s arguments that the SNP’s decision is not backed by the Scottish working class, and that Labour will find the Glasgow North East by-election hard going. I’m not so sure. Clearly it’s going to be tight, but Labour will take heart from this poll, which also reveals voting intentions. The SNP is down 6 points to 33 per cent and Labour is up 5 to 33 per cent. It was expected that the al-Megrahi decision could end up doing the SNP more harm than good.

Wednesday

Daniel Korski

Libyagate has its roots in Labour’s devolution

From our UK edition

One of the oddest parts of Libyagate is what it says about Gordon Brown’s notions of devolution. The Prime Minister does not want to comment on the affair because, we are told, he sees it as a matter for the Scottish government, not the British government. So, if the actions of a devolved but subordinate level of government go against the state’s interests, the leaders of that state should stay mum? That's certainly not the view taken by successive US administrations; they have often condemned state-level actions, even when the federal government has been legally powerless to do anything in practice. The UK has no written constitution as in the US, but a clear constitutional settlement nonetheless.

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Brown breaks his silence

From our UK edition

At last, Gordon Brown has something to say about the Lockerbie bomber’s release. He said he was “angry and repulsed” by the welcome the Lockerbie bomber receive in Libya. And he also added: “I made it clear to Gadaffi in July that we could have no role in the release of al-Megrahi”. This doesn't draw a line under the controversy. As William Hague has argued, the story is now about why it took Brown so long to say those few words and still managed to say nothing. And he hasn't answered any of the serious questions being asked of the government.

Monday

David Blackburn

There’s no one like Macavity

From our UK edition

Paul Waugh’s spot on: Brown has been reluctant to congratulate England for their Ashes victory because he is so desperate to avoid being dragged into the international furore surrounding al-Megrahi's release. A Number.10 spokesman described Kenny MacAskill’s release order as a “uniquely sensitive and difficult decision" and one that (surprise, surprise) was taken completely independently of the British government. But, as yet, Macavity's not here. I suppose I could be doing the PM a disservice. Braying about our Ashes victory would, of course, be uniquely insensitive to our Australian brothers. And besides, giving congratulations is probably someone else’s job.

Alex Massie

Lockerbie & Occam’s Razor

From our UK edition

So, I've got this correct, the initial reaction to Kenny MacAskill's decision to free the Lockerbie bobmber was that this demonstrated nothing but the SNP's provincialism. Small-toon politicians desperate to make a mark on the international stage and all that. Now we're told that it was all just about grubby, if lucrative commercial interests and that London was quite happy to see al-Megrahi repatriated, whether on compassionate grounds or as a consequence of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement agreed with Libya. It's possible that both of these theories to be partially true. However, if the Westminster government really did want to see Megrahi sent home to Libya, it's quite possible that the SNP ministry in Edinburgh would have done everything possible to frustrate London.

Sunday

David Blackburn

The stench of realpolitik

From our UK edition

Suggesting that al-Megrahi’s release was the result of a deal being struck to protect commercial interests should be offensive, but there are a number of questions the government need to answer. First, was al-Megrahi’s transfer a condition of the Blair-Gadaffi Deal in the Desert? On Friday, Saif al-Islam said: “In all commercial contracts for oil and gas with Britain, Megrahi was always on the negotiating table”. The Foreign Office deny this and yesterday Lord Mandelson said: “The issue of the prisoner’s release is quite separate from the general matter of our relations and indeed the prisoner’s release has not been influenced in any way by the British government.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Lockerbie Decision: The Backlash Begins

From our UK edition

I was wrong. I argued that people can disagree in good faith on the question as to whether Kenny MacAskill was correct to let Abdebaset Ali al-Megrahi return to Libya to die. I should hav known better. Those who think the decision mistaken appear to believe there are no reasons - none! - to support taking a different view. Douglas Carswell, for instance, thinks it awful that a lack of compassion (on Megrahi's part) should be met by a degree of compassion (on the part of the Scottish legal system). That's a valid point, but it's equally valid to note that our justice system is not in fact predicated upon the principle of an eye for an eye. Indeed, if you were of a religious mind, you might argue that MacAskill's choice was informed by the New Testament, not the Old.