Before I say anything else let me make it clear that, if it is proved beyond doubt that there was collusion between the Scottish government or Kenny MacAskill, and the foul Libyan regime of the slimy chancer Qaddafi, the odious London Labour regime of Gordon Brown and his seedy lord chancellor Straw man, or the greedy, grasping, money-grabbing, BP management, then I shall tear up my SNP membership card and vote for another nationalist party.
That said, I find it hard to believe that Kenny or Alex wouldn’t be wily enough to realize that the release of the supposed Lockerbie bomber was likely to cause so much of a stir in places where it mattered, ie Washington DC, that they would have to be mentally deranged to have got involved with anything even vaguely dodgy in its respect.
Embarking on this exercise I would imagine that, had I been Kenny, I would have been aware that my every move would be scrutinized, first in Scotland by the opposition parties, then by the London politicians, not to mention by every new programme, broadsheet newspaper, and finally by the government of the USA. This, if nothing else would have encouraged me to go, not just by the book, but by every single letter of the book.
At this moment I am so angry with David Cameron that I doubt if I shall sleep tonight.
I have watched and listened with growing incredulity at the news reports of Senators wanting to summon (yes, summon, if you please) Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to appear before them, of the criticisms and demands of the USA for inquiries into how the Scottish governm
ent conducts its lawful business, of criticism from Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama, and finally of the banal utterances of David Cameron preparing for his first official visit to the Whitehouse, but whilst in England.
But what drove me over the edge was Cameron criticizing the workings of the Scottish government whilst he was in the United States. Doubtless this was done in an effort to worm his way closer into the affections of Mr Obama (and thereby sticking it to Gordon Brown, whom the president clearly disliked passionately).
Speaking at the White House, Cameron said: “It was a bad decision, it shouldn’t have been made. This was the biggest mass murderer in British history.”
There used to be a rule in politics, based on decency.
You do not criticise things at home when you are abroad. The reason for the rule was, of course, that those whom you were criticising, being thousands of miles away, would not be given an opportunity to tell their side of the story. Clearly Dave, in his desire for a pat on the head from his boss saw fit to ignore that old fashioned courtesy.
Cameron has clearly shown so shortly after announcing a respect agenda for Scotland, that he has none. We didn’t vote for him... and we are unlikely to do so in the future, so he doesn’t give a stuff about us.
So... don’t be too surprised Mr Cameron, if we don’t have much in the way of respect for you.
And just a wee word about the American senators who face re-election in a few months, and the president, who wants desperately not to lose too many seats in the Senate... You guys think of yourself as the most Christian country in the world. So, you will doubtless be aware that the Christian part of the Bible instructs individuals, in the Lord’s Prayer, to “forgive those who trespass against us” and Christians are warned in Romans 12:19 to “... avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
More or less what Kenny said actually? Just something to think about.
That said, I find it hard to believe that Kenny or Alex wouldn’t be wily enough to realize that the release of the supposed Lockerbie bomber was likely to cause so much of a stir in places where it mattered, ie Washington DC, that they would have to be mentally deranged to have got involved with anything even vaguely dodgy in its respect.
Embarking on this exercise I would imagine that, had I been Kenny, I would have been aware that my every move would be scrutinized, first in Scotland by the opposition parties, then by the London politicians, not to mention by every new programme, broadsheet newspaper, and finally by the government of the USA. This, if nothing else would have encouraged me to go, not just by the book, but by every single letter of the book.
At this moment I am so angry with David Cameron that I doubt if I shall sleep tonight.
I have watched and listened with growing incredulity at the news reports of Senators wanting to summon (yes, summon, if you please) Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to appear before them, of the criticisms and demands of the USA for inquiries into how the Scottish governm
ent conducts its lawful business, of criticism from Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama, and finally of the banal utterances of David Cameron preparing for his first official visit to the Whitehouse, but whilst in England.But what drove me over the edge was Cameron criticizing the workings of the Scottish government whilst he was in the United States. Doubtless this was done in an effort to worm his way closer into the affections of Mr Obama (and thereby sticking it to Gordon Brown, whom the president clearly disliked passionately).
Speaking at the White House, Cameron said: “It was a bad decision, it shouldn’t have been made. This was the biggest mass murderer in British history.”
There used to be a rule in politics, based on decency.
You do not criticise things at home when you are abroad. The reason for the rule was, of course, that those whom you were criticising, being thousands of miles away, would not be given an opportunity to tell their side of the story. Clearly Dave, in his desire for a pat on the head from his boss saw fit to ignore that old fashioned courtesy.
Cameron has clearly shown so shortly after announcing a respect agenda for Scotland, that he has none. We didn’t vote for him... and we are unlikely to do so in the future, so he doesn’t give a stuff about us.
So... don’t be too surprised Mr Cameron, if we don’t have much in the way of respect for you.
And just a wee word about the American senators who face re-election in a few months, and the president, who wants desperately not to lose too many seats in the Senate... You guys think of yourself as the most Christian country in the world. So, you will doubtless be aware that the Christian part of the Bible instructs individuals, in the Lord’s Prayer, to “forgive those who trespass against us” and Christians are warned in Romans 12:19 to “... avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
More or less what Kenny said actually? Just something to think about.
Please also have a look at:
http://darklochnagar.blogspot.com/2010/07/message-from-scotland-to-usa-fuck-off.html (strong language warning, but a brilliant post.)
and
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.com/2010/07/david-milibands-severe-case-of-false.html (The best Scottish politics blog ever...)
and
http://nomoradiaspora.blogspot.com/2010/07/bile-is-rising.html
Price of having your own government I'm afraid. It was the decision of the Scottish government to release Megrahi, it might have been influenced by the previous UK Labour government, however that's not the current one. If Cameron wishes to criticise the Scottish government, that's up to him, it's not his government after all and you don't vote Conservative in big enough numbers to influence him.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the world of Realpolitik
Hey there QM. You’re up late.
ReplyDeleteHe promised us respect after the unbelievable way that madman Brown treated us.
He lied.
If we are a foreign government to him then he has no right to get involved: it is between us and America. We are perfectly capable of dealing with it. After all we are not in a hurry to get our tongues into Obama’s ass.
If he is speaking as prime minister of the UK who feels it is his business, he should have kept his criticism for when he was in this country and directed it to the people whom he is criticising. It’s good manners.
At the moment to Scots he looks like a cross between a gossiping old fishwife and an ill-mannered boor (I thought toffs did manners at Eton and drinking at Oxford).
He also comes across a naive. He's being used by US senators who have been around a long time and know how to make use of greenhorns like Cameron. He's looking like a right fool.
But, you are right of course. None of us vote for them, so we can expect to get damn all for the next 5 years (if they last that long).
You make the perfect argument for separation.
:-)
Sorry I would normally wish to ameliorate my language on here. But David Cameron is so anxious to climb up Barack Obama’s arse and do a good brown nosing that there is nothing he would not do or say. The man is a hollow chancer who promised things left right and centre to climb the greasy pole. And now that he has got there you can all go and F off. He is desperate for his place in history and he knows he will only get a footnote to the US President (al la Tony Blair) if he does what he is told. So we are now playing second fiddle to the US its official and the SNP Scottish Government was totally wrong and probably corruptly in the pocket of New Labour and BP but he still respects the Scottish people and wants to be PM of the entire UK (he might just be the last the way he is going). He is not thinking about a second term yet but that will come and then the weasel words will be back.
ReplyDeleteI've lost all respect for him now.
ReplyDeleteHe's treated our government like it's a Community Council.
Nonsense.
Tris
ReplyDeleteWe now no for certain what a lot of us suspected, the Cameron respect agenda was all just talk and no substance. a bit like Cameron really.
Sad to see yet another British poodle laying down in front of his master.
By the way I thought that Kirsty Wark was totally out of her depth in her interview with Alex Salmond on Newsnight last night (about 13 mins in and worth watching) Interesting that she thinks that someone with prostate cancer can be described as being "in good health"
Just a scary thought, just imagine that it was Iain Gray that was interviewed last night.
Kirst Wark is always out of her depth with Alex Salmond Dubbie.
ReplyDeleteShe's used to asking questions of Labour's councillors; people like Gray.
Could you send a link for the interview please?
Tris
ReplyDeleteAbout 13 mins in. Well worth watching.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t6v1r/Newsnight_20_07_2010/
It's amazin the umbrage ah've felt these past few days, aften fae fowk wha couldnae care less aboot politics. Cameron gaun ower the Atlantic tae slag aff the Scottish government in language he widnae daur use north o' the Tweed, is a sickenin sicht indeed, an' is positionin him an' his disrespectfu Tory bunch jist the ither side o' Pol Pot in the popularity stakes.
ReplyDeleteAlex, yince again, looks cool, honest, competent, completely self-controlled, an' in the right. Like yersel tris, ah wid be dumbfoundit if Alex an' Kenny were found no tae be tellin the truth, but if theyre no, it disnae show in their faces.
Sophia's right of course but Cameron's not only tried his best to harm Scotland but brought Britain into disrepute. So many English folk are disgusted at him meeting these senators after refusing.
ReplyDeleteSR: He has insulted us abroad. He specifically said that the Scottish Executive (sic) was wrong to follow the letter of Scots law. How dare he do that in America? That's unspeakable.
ReplyDeleteBut I think that you're right. He will have made enemies in his own country too.
I had high hopes that the new government in London would treat us with a measure of respect. It has taken no time at all for that to be well and truly rubbished.
PS... how’s the weather your way?
The silly old Wark always makes a fool of herself when she's interviewing Alex, Sophia.
ReplyDeleteHe is cool, calm, collected and statesmanlike, and she's a gets more and more het up and ruder and ruder.
She's an amateur, and for the money the Beeb, or rather WE, are paying she should really do better.
Merci beaucoup Dubbie...
ReplyDeleteOut of her depth gets my vote!
Tris
ReplyDeleteThe one good thing to come out of this, apart from the correct decision being made to release him in the first place, is to show Cameron for what he is, just a light weight PR man.
Anyone who was fooled by the so called respect agenda will now have to think again.
I thought that at the Obama press conference there should have been a foot stool for Cameron, he would have looked better on his knees, looking up adoringly waiting for his latest instructions.
After Blair and Brown was it too much to expect a UK prime minister with a bit of backbone?
Spot on Dubs. I doubt he has done himself much good on this trip, despite what the adoring Tory press may say.
ReplyDeleteHe seems to have annoyed everyone... the Scots of course. Even if you're not a nationalist you have to be at least a little cross that your government was treated like a community council. Then as Subrosa pointed out, he hasn't done himself any favours with the English either by showing himself up as a greenhorn used for electoral purposes by much more experienced senators, and then he's miffed the military and their families by agreeing to what the boss man said about when the troops will come out.
What a wimp of a prime minister.
Tris
ReplyDeleteThis is the Newsnight Scotland report which covers all the main points in a more balanced way than Newsnight.
Worth watching from the start with Alex Salmond being interviewed about 8 mins in. Far more professional interviewer than Wark, he will not last at the BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00t4pxk/Newsnight_Scotland_20_07_2010/
Absolutely spot on Dubs.
ReplyDeleteMakes you proud when you see the FM perform with such statesmanship.
The press and politicians have misrepresented what Dr Secora (sp?) said. Some idiot Tory MP is going around telling everyone that Al Megrahi is likely to live for 10 years , when in fact the Dr said that there is less than 1% chance of that.
David Miliband is a cheesy little liar. He conveniently forgot that as Foreign Secretary he wanted the release of the prisoner. There's only one thing worse than a lying politician and that's a patronising one. Milly, we're not all bloody thick. Oh, and it's not the Scottish executive you stupid man, but then you're facing election too aren't you, just like the Senators who have stirred all this stuff up. I really hope you lose... to your brother or Diana Abbot or my granny’s cat.
And David Cameron's use of the word "luxury" in reference to people dying of prostate cancer was, I think, ill- advised. No one dying of prostate cancer, Mr Cameron, not even a King in a palace, could be said to be doing so in "luxury". It hurts like the very devil, you amateur. I hope that particular statement comes back to bite you on the arse.
Hmm. Truly shameful politicking by the man-Salmon and his sickly spawn, Mohammed Al-MacAskilleveryoneonboard.
ReplyDeleteBut no one has come to expect from him and his ilk, mired as they are in the malodorous slurry that is general politics, anyting better than this.
My hope is that you, tris, together with your weird mutant monkey-penguin Scottish pet, will create a new Scottish Nationalist movement. An honest and intelligent one that doesn't take its nationalist constituents utterly for granted all the bloody time.
You know, a Scottish Nationalist movement that Britain can be proud of :)
(Er, I meant this post in jest. Please delete it mercilessly if, as I suspect might be the case, I've crossed a few lines.
Sorry about that.)
A Scottish Nationalist movement that Britain can be proud of? Where you drunk when you wrote that? I'm assuming you were at 3.35am on a Saturday morning and will say no more about being described as a weird mutant Scottish pet.
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't delete posts Denverthen, unless they contain foul language or personal attacks on other contributors, (excluding me or Munguin), which of course, yours, as eloquent as ever, does not. You’re always free to say what you want to say on here. That said, I’m a bit surprised and just a little hurt by it.
ReplyDeleteBut let’s not make a party political thing out of these people’s lives or the Scottish Justice System. Labour in Scotland has already done that, and done themselves no favours at all.
The law in Scotland says that if a prisoner is suffering from a terminal illness, regardless of whether he pinched a bar of chocolate or blew up a plane, must be treated in a prescribed way. (For the purposes of these discussions MacAskill has to assume the guilt of the prisoner. The only alternative to that is to admit that the Scottish legal system was nobbled by the Americans [with the co-operation of the British authorities, which at that time oversaw Scots law from London’s Dover House]. America, you will recall, originally wanted the trial to be held in America, for reasons at which we can only guess!)
The deal is that the prisoner must, in the opinion of the Scottish Prison Authorities’ Chief Medical Officer, in consultation with specialists, have a prognosis of less than 3 months to live. MacAskill had that opinion from his medical officer. It is there in writing. It has turned out to be wrong. Medical evidence is notoriously dodgy, even when, as in this case it was based on the opinions of 4 oncologists and one very senior doctor.
The prisoner must be considered to be no further risk to the public. On the basis that his cancer had progressed to the point where he required strong medication, and that he had, in any case been a model prisoner, helping his fellow inmates by teaching them (ironically, as he was Libyan) English. That has turned out to be right.
It seems to me that the presumption is that legally the man was entitled to compassionate release. McAskill could of course simply have said no, perhaps on the basis that his crime was more awful than most. (Perhaps not as awful as the nightly bombing of Iraq by a madman and his monkey, or the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane killing two hundred plus passengers, by a man who went on to get a medal for doing it, but awful nonetheless.)
But really, on no other basis could MacAskill have refused the parole. Jack Straw was faced with the same problem with Biggs, and Ken Baker faced the same problem with Saunders. Medical evidence showed that they were finished, and...well, they weren’t. I dare say neither enjoyed doing it any more than the MacAskill, but it’s the law, it would seem, in England as well as Scotland.
continued.......
....2
ReplyDeleteSalmond, like him or not, has published every document on the Lockerbie incident except two sets. One is the communication with the British government, for which permission has been withheld by them, both Tories and Labour, and the other was communications with the American government, for which permission has also be withheld, by them.
As to whether the British government wanted him released. At the time (after Iain Gray made a complete fool of himself by indicating that if HE were first minister the release would not happen), the English government indicated that it had no problems with the release.
Whether that was because they thought it politic that the man not die in a Scottish, and therefore British, prison whilst suffering from cancer, given the opportunity for certain elements to use this as a “recruiting sergeant”, or whether because BP nobbled them, is of little import, at least when discussing the Scottish issue. The decision was not theirs to make. Their opinion was of little interest. Scots law, based on justice interwoven with mercy was the deciding factor.
Any notion that there would have been collusion between the governments of Brown and Salmond, permanently “à couteaux tirés”, is laughable. Anyone who knows the situation between these two would dismiss out of hand co-operation of any kind.
The BP question is of course one which would have been a British government issue. Deals in the desert are not within the remit of any Scottish government.
Well, that’s my take on it anyway. You can wake up now.
I’m sure Munguin will be less irate about your description of him when I explain the light hearted banter we have enjoyed on your own blog on his “origins”.
Denverthen....
ReplyDeleteYou might like to take a glance at this. I'm sure it explains the situation better than I do.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2010/07/21170251