What a Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday morning it was revealed that Gordon Brown had vetoed attempts to force Libya to make compensation to IRA victims of Libyan supplied Semtex. Yesterday evening in Berlin he said:

"I desperately care about the impact of all IRA atrocities on the victims, their families and communities.

"The Libyans have refused to accept a treaty or normal intergovernmental agreement on this issue.

"As a result, our judgement has been that the course more likely to bring results is to support the families and their lawyers in their legal representations to the Libyan authorities.

"We will appoint dedicated officers in the Foreign Office and our Embassy in Tripoli who will accompany the campaign group to meetings with the Libyan government to negotiate compensation, the first of which will be in the next few weeks."

It was greeted by opposition MPs as a U-Turn. William Hague the shadow Foreign Secretary said:

"The Prime Minister's announcement is a stunning admission that the Government has failed to support the families of the victims of IRA terrorism in their pursuit of compensation from Libya. This U-turn comes only after today’s reports that Gordon Brown was personally involved in a decision not to engage Libya on this issue. The British Government should have provided active support as a matter of course, not as a result of public pressure. But Gordon Brown and the Government he leads have long lost their moral compass."

Jeffrey Donaldson of the DUP added:

"We have forced a U-turn, it's not every day you can say that.

"We will work with his government to put the case to the Libyans.

"It is essential now that the government delivers what the Prime Minister has promised."

And the Lib Dem Foreign Affairs Spokesman Ed Davey said:

"We have got a prime minister who no longer appears to be in control. The government looks pretty weak."

Lawyers representing the victims of 138 families had already approached Mr Brown about the possibility of Government assistance in taking their claims forward to be told that it would have been "inappropriate". Yesterday after a fair bit of international* as well as national scrutiny the Prime Minister promised a "dedicated" team of officials at his press conference prior to meeting the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In what would appear to be a volte-face brought about at the end of a hard two weeks of Libyan diplomacy stories leaking out to the press, the focus is slowly shifting unto just what has the British government been up to, if all this isn't about the oil deals already secured by BP and Shell, why is it only in reaction to being uncovered that the Prime Minister and his Ministers are prepared to come clean about the facts?

*This blog managed to attract worldwide attention and readers from 45 of the states in the US.

Oil Be There For You*

There are 2,500 families of the victims of the IRA's Libyan supplied Semtex.But the latest news over Westminster's 'special relationship' with Libya is that Gordon Brown vetoed attempts to force Libya to pay compensation as it would affect Trade Talks.

Lawyers for the victims are wanting the government to get a US-style scheme of compensation which has paid out $2.7 billion (£1.6 billion) to their 270 victims on Pan-Am flight 103. The latest revelation coming hot on the heels of Jack Straw's admission that oil deals with Libya were partially a factor in the talks about Megrahi. However, Gordon Brown in his silence breaking statement Wednesday appears to tell a different tale from his Justice Secretary when he said:

"On our part there was no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to influence Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Colonel Gaddafi

"As I told Colonel Gaddafi at the only meeting with him I have had, a decision on Megrahi was the sole responsibility of the Scottish Government. So when I met him I could not give him comfort or any assurance at all about [al-Megrahi's] fate."

Too much is unravelling, there is something going on behind the scenes that is trying not to look out for those UK citizens affected by Libya sponsored terrorism down the years. Just want stance is the Government taking with our seemingly new best friends (with oil)? There are mixed messages coming from Westminster which are making Iain Grey the leader in Scotland look more and more out of the loop and ridiculous as he attacks Kenny MacAskill. It also seems to be that questions need to be asked of Brown and Straw rather than finger wagging at the Scottish Justice Minister.

None of this affects my previous thoughts on the rightness of the decision at the time, although there does now appear to be even greater subterfuge into the points leading up to that. The unfairness of the treatment of the terrorists over the victims and their families, the deals that were going on behind the scenes. Just what does the Prime Minister et al know that has yet to come out.

*The title of course is a take on a title of the Rembrandts' song used in the title sequence of Friends.

Cross Posting; Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #7 - The Megrahi Documents

Just before Gmail took an hours nap last night I managed to send this off to Lib Dem Voice and it was posted during the debate at Holyrood earlier.

"The Megrahi case has ripped apart the peace of the Scottish Parliamentary recess, with even some former Lib Dem leaders taking a differing view to our leader in Holyrood. Today the UK Government and Scottish Parliament have released papers relating to the discussions that have gone one over the last two years. It ranges from correspondence between Westminster and Holyrood, to memos of meetings with Libyan officials, to the compassionate release request listing medical conditions.

"These start chronologically with the first letter from then-Lord Chancellor Lord (Charles) Falconer to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond outlining the Memorandum of Understanding that Westminster had set up with Libya regarding a number of judicial issues. The Memorandum was drawn up to look at increasing bilateral co-operation covering, amongst other things, commercial and criminal issues. The legal issues were not exclusively about Mr Al Megrahi, but looking at the bigger picture of co-operation between the two nations at large. However, Lord Falconer did say that nothing could be ruled in or out, but that co-operation and consultation between Westminster and Holyrood would be carried forward.

"However, it the path of the UK’s justice secretary Jack Straw’s correspondence that sheds a lot of light on the situation....."

Read the full thing here.

Time to Stop This Political Fitba Match

"I think most opinion in Scotland is in favour of the decision to release him [Megrahi] on compassionate grounds."

Now that is the sort of considered, public listened to response I would expect from a Liberal Democrat leader. Unfortunately they were the words of Lord David Steel our former leader and not those of Tavish Scott who asked in the chamber:

"Doesn't Kenny MacAskill's comment on the need for Scottish compassion mean that no prisoner - however bad their crime - will ever have a request turned down?"

Although Kenny MacAskill's response to cite Jim Wallace's situation which was due to a loophole in The Mental Health Act (Scotland) 1984 which Labour and the Lib Dems since closed down was the wrong way to deal with it.

The answer to Tavish's question is of course no, each case should continue to be looked at on a case by case basis. Although it the severity of the situation that is to be considered, it should not be clouded by the response the prisoner received on his release. Some have asked how can a man with prostate cancer manage to climb the steps of a plane. Seeing as my father walking into hospital one Monday for a check up on his and was dead the following evening I'd say easily and horribly that is no indication.

The compassion being shown is not so much to Megrahi is as has been pointed out not so much to the man himself but his family. Some have pointed out that his wife and children have had access to him in Glasgow, but one other issue that the man himself made to journalists on the flight to Libya was his elderly mother. He urged the press not to let her know just how ill he was.

America with their more punitive justice system, if Megrahi had of be tried there, would most likely depending on state have been sitting on death row. But that doesn't give their comparative upstart of a youthful legal system the right to intervene in others. Of course they have the right to consultation and I understand that this did indeed occur. But just because you have been listened to and consulted with doesn't suddenly give you the right to have a say over another nations rule of law. That is lesson that the USA seem to be forgetting as they seem more and more to be turning the whole world into some lawless 'wild west' with them alone wearing the sheriff's badge.

While we are right from all sides to condemn the reception laid on for Megrahi on arrival at Tripoli, it is wrong to outrightly condemn the decision. It would have been easy for Kenny MacAskill to take the easy option and bow to international pressure. How anyone can see it, in light of the foreseeable reaction, as point scoring is beyond me. He made a tough decision, and bar visiting the prisoner personally, it would seem a considered one on factual criteria.

The fact that the three main* opposition parties didn't force a vote yesterday either indicates they are worried of a different public reaction against them, or aren't sure they'd carry their own votes. I don't necessarily think that Scotland's place in this world is in "tatters" not from the Americans I've seen around Edinburgh over the weekend. But the more we play political football with a legal football the more we will appear so.

*Sorry, James corrected as promised.

Back to the Simple Life: A Guide for Americans to Boycott Scotland

So the Americans wish to boycott Scotland and all that means after the release of al-Megrahi last week, let me help you out.

First turn off the TV right now, as that was invented by John Logie Baird a Scot. You're just going to have to find other things to do with your time. But you're not going to be able to arrange it by telephone as that was invented by Alexander Graham Bell another Scot.

Yes America you are actually going to have to go around and visit people. But you can't go by car as the pneumatic tyre was invented by Scot John Dunlop and the tarmac technique of paving most roads was developed by another John Loudon McAdam.

If you get ill we can't prescribe you penicillin as Alexander Fleming discovered that. Also ultrasound, Ian Donald, and MRI Scans, John Mallard, are also out. If I were you I'd opt for the Obama health plan if you're doing away with the Scottish influence.

As for McDonalds well with a name like that it's bound to be Scottish.