Alex Massie

Here's the text of the letter Alex Salmond has sent to Senator John Kerry, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There's nothing new here but it does state, clearly, the essential facts of the matter. Megrahi's cancer is, again, to be regretted not least because it put an end to his appeal against his conviction and, thus, ended the prospects for a fresh review of what was, even if you think him guilty, a thoroughly unsatisfactory process. Dear Senator Kerry, I am writing to you about the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s recent interest in the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed AI-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. This letter sets out the Scottish Government’s position on the key issues that have been raised in recent days.

I'm not convinced I share James's view that David Cameron's "1940 moment" counts as a howler, far less a "quite spectacular mistake" (and I suspect James doesn't really think it that either). It's pretty obvious that the Prime Minister simply slipped-up. I think he knows that in 1940 the United States had yet to enter the war and that it's abundantly obvious that he meant to say that the UK was the US's junior partner "in the 1940s". We know this because in his interview with Sky News Cameron was repeating lines he used in his Wall Street Journal column this week in which he wrote: I am hard-headed and realistic about U.S.-U.K. relations. I understand that we are the junior partner—just as we were in the 1940s and, indeed, in the 1980s.

As Marbury says, Peggy Noonan's bizarre column offering advice to David Cameron ahead of his trip to the US makes "America sound like a weepy, insecure girlfriend in constant need of emotional reassurance". True that: Advice on your visit? Love America. It not only deserves it, at the moment it needs it. Our morale is low. Do you want to help preserve what has been called the Special Relationship? (Actually, I don't know: do you?) If you do, then when you speak here, speak of your love for this great nation. We don't, not in a deep way and not enough. Even our President doesn't. He tries, but he can't get it right because it's all so abstract to him. He associates patriotism with nationalism.

Tim Montgomerie has some recommendations for how David Cameron can bolster relations with the Tory right. He should be more polite and conciliatory, throw the right the occasional bone or opportunity to head a policy review, offer a way back for some of those, such as David Davis, who are no longer part of the fold, have better relations with the wider Tory family, consult a bit more outside his own circle and so on. It's all perfectly sensible even if one's also left feeling that even if Cameron did all Montgomerie recommends, it would only be a matter of time before the Right grew restless anyway. As Tim puts it: The Cameron-Tory relationship may look good at the moment.