I’ll start with the #Rainman stuff first - travel by air and rail should be the safest means of getting around, but the small Scottish town of Lockerbie, which should otherwise be known for delicious Mature Cheddar Cheese, has the macabre history of being the site of horrific train and plane crashes. Except of course that, whoever was to blame, the downing of Pan Am flight 103 was no accident. In terms of terrorism top trumps, the image of the ‘Maid of the Seas’ cockpit nose cone turned on its side is perhaps second only to the horrors of 9/11.
So why is Scotland’s nationalist First Minister so proud to release the man convicted for this atrocity? What I really dislike about this debacle is the notion that he was released because there were a lot of people who thought he was innocent.
That just isn’t the way justice should work - the principle of innocent until proven guilty works the other way round, namely that a convicted man should remain as such until there is a body of evidence presented to a court to prove otherwise.
Instead, we have got a complete muddying of the waters between innocence v. guilt and compassion v. justice. Throw in the whole question of Peter Mandelson’s deals regarding Libyan oil and the inevitable flag waving return to Tripoli, on a flight numbered 103 just to rub it all in, and we really have made a complete laughing stock of both British and Scottish justice.
Considering all this, it really is a great shame that it should be seen as a symbol of Scottish pride to let this man free, especially when the Scottish legal system has so much to be proud of, not least the concept of a Not Proven verdict.
Much as though I really don’t like bringing any more attention to terrorist attacks on transport networks than is necessary, I really do think that it is just a tad rich for Americans to be calling for boycotts of Scotland and the UK because of Al Megrahi ’s release - as if such a boycott would bring the man back to prison. There are still many questions which need answering, perhaps most importantly from Gordon Brown with respect to where he stands on this issue, but I can think of two words to say in response to American boycott calls - Guantanamo and Bay.
It does seem particularly strange tghat the levels of denial go so high in Gordon’s government - to his right hand man (Some would say he *is* the man) Mandleson to have met with Gadafi’s sone so recently. Meddling and interfering is the way of the man who I suspect is one of the most cleverly devious people to ever be involved in British Politics. At least Gordon didn’t send his new dancing envoy to see Gadafi’s son - Arlene Phillips shouldn’t be an advisor on the colour of toffee wrappers let alone anything else!
I guess letting Biggs out first was paving the way for “compassion” and now I hear Madoff in the US has got cancer so may also be released on compassionate grounds rather than serve his 150 years prison sentence.
I might just go back to my book about the hangmen of Britain and ponder how much emptier the prisons could be.
Comment by Diane — August 25, 2009 @ 8:42 am
Agree with all points Sir. The debate shouldn’t be about whether he is innocent or not. He was proven guilty and no appeal was made. He should therefore carry out his sentence and, I believe, die in prison.
Meanwhile i’m off to Ladbrokes to put a tenner on him last longer than 3 months or making a ‘miraculous’ recovery. It makes Britain/Scotland look desperate!
Comment by Will — August 25, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
Good stuff Ken, a tight appraisal. What I found irritating was “Scotland’s nationalist First Minister” being interviewed on Newsnight by Gavin Esler. Esler was in attack dog mode and clearly trying desperately to emulate Paxo by repeating the same (worthless) question, this was compounded by the same similarly worthless answer repeated over and over from “Scotland’s nationalist First Minister”, the decision was clearly out of his hand and he was trying to salvage some political traction from his supposed “position” on the matter.
Comment by Dog — August 25, 2009 @ 4:29 pm