IT'S ALL IN A NAME...

Much has been written about Vote No Borders by better writers than I, but Munguin noticed (strange little animal) that once again the No campaign has managed to pick a name that lends itself to a titter.

OK, some would say that it is a tad childish to laugh at the names, because they are either rather silly or can be made to sound smutty. And I agree.

But you have to wonder at the people who invent these names, that they haven't seen the potential for ridicule in them. What happens at the committee stage when they are deciding on the launch? Does anyone look critically at the name as see if it can be used to ridicule the campaign? Are they naive maiden aunt types from the 1950s, or well ...what?

I recall that at one point they set up "Blether Together" (whatever happened to that?). It's objective was to get teams of people to chat on the phone about why we were better together, although frankly I'd have thought that repeating the word "clout" over and over would become tedious after a while.

But did no one think that, at least in certain parts of Scotland, the word "blether" translates into English as something somewhere between 'silly talk' and downright 'rubbish talk'. It never indicates a serious discussion. You never hear of people having a "blether" about quantum physics!

My grandmother used to say that she had met Mrs McDonald  for a "wee blether" when out "daein the messages". She was saying that she had stopped for an inconsequential chat about nothing very much...."pas grand-chose de n'importe quoi" as the French would say. 

Or, when we were kids giving her some excuse about how we had torn something or got filthy or wet... (without telling her we'd been scrumping for apples or wading through the burn), she used to say "Ach awa ye bletherin' wee skite". In short she knew we were making it up... and we were "belthering".

it's an unfortunate choice of words for a serious political campaign about something that will change your lives.

Then they decided that the UK was OK. 

Now that was unfortunate, even at the most innocent of level, because most of us would probably like to live somewhere that was better than just OK.

But the minute that they printed the name out all we could see was "U KOK".

Unfortunate, no?

Now we have No Borders. This so-called grassroots campaign of ordinary, everyday Scottish people, erm based in London and run by a millionaire Tory backer. Still, I suppose he's an ordinary everyday Tory grassroots English millionaire. The website of the second partner actually boasts to have worked on "country branding" for England!

So again, unfortunate on its own. 

I mean if you are going to pretend to be grassroots, would it not be better (and cheaper) to register your address in Scotland and to employ someone whose name isn't immediately associated with the rich and powerful in London?

But to add insult to injury, the name so easily contacts to NoB... that it is an invitation to treat. Tory nobs (short for "nobles" I imagine), are as popular in Scotland as frostbite!

OK...I can hear Niko telling Munguin that he is being childish, sniggering at this... but aren't there a lot of other people who are using it to poke fun?

And isn't that something that people who start organisations like this should have thought about and taken steps to avoid?
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LET US KNOW THE TRUTH MR SALMOND

Megrahi is dead. There are those who rejoiced at that news.


I did not.


I've never thought that he was guilty. I've always been of the opinion that they needed a scapegoat; The public demanded that they find someone to pin it on. But they didn't have anyone, so they fitted someone up.


Having taken the opportunity to use his death to reiterate his entirely unwanted, and irrelevant opinion that Megrahi should never have been released, Cameron has made it clear that he wishes there to be no further investigation into the matter, which immediately tells me that there is something that he wants to hide...


The other day I read a piece on Wings Over Scotland, written by a sometime commentator on Munguin's Republic, Doug Daniel. He was deeply incensed that Lamont had taken it upon herself to apologise on behalf of Scotland to god knows who... the world possibly... for Megrahi's release. Given that she was elected by around 0.2% of the population of Scotland, and that her party was given the mother and father of kickings, it is some leap of faith for her to believe that she speaks for Scotland.


Anyway, I digress. One of the commentators on there, Morag, wrote this post, which I think more or less sums up all the things I knew or felt...much better than I would have. With her permission I post it here.


Many have said that Megrahi was “probably involved in some way”, but nobody has ever been able to produce any evidence other than what was presented in court.  What was presented in court showed that he was catching a plane from Malta to Tripoli on the morning of 21st December 1988, and was in Tripoli at the time the evidence (presented in court) showed the bomb suitcase to have been smuggled into the baggage container waiting at Heathrow airport.

 
The court chose to go with the fairy-story dreamed up by the investigators that the bomb suitcase had somehow been rendered invisible and levitated on board an Air Malta flight, despite months and indeed years of intensive investigation failing to find any evidence at all that this had happened – or even that it could have happened.  They simply ignored the concrete evidence from witnesses at Heathrow that the security there was abysmal, and one witness in particular who actually saw the suitcase in question in the container before the feeder flight allegedly carrying the “suitcase from Malta” had landed.
 
Thus they reasoned that Megrahi had been present when this magical deed was done, thus he must somehow have been involved in it.  Why?  Because he bought the clothes packed in the suitcase with the bomb.
 
But hang on, the evidence that he was the person who bought these clothes was beyond tenuous (and later proved to have been linked to a $3 million bribe to the clothes sellers).  So why did the judges decide this tenuous “resemblance” haltingly attested to by Tony Gauci was enough to say Megrahi was definitely the purchaser?  Why, because he was at the airport when the bomb was smuggled on board the Air Malta flight!
 
You couldn’t make it up.
 
Megrahi didn’t buy those clothes.  The man who bought the clothes was about 50 years old, dark-skinned, heavily-built and over six feet tall (Tony’s original description before the cops got to work on him).  Megrahi is 5′ 8″, light-skinned, of normal build, and was 36 years old on the date in question.  And he wasn’t even on Malta that day, either.
 
Megrahi was in Tripoli at 4pm on 21st December 1988, the time John Bedford went for his tea break at Heathrow, after which he returned to find an extra suitcase in the baggage container he was loading for Pan Am 103, a suitcase perfectly matching the description of the one that blew apart because of the bomb inside it, and which did not match the description of any of the luggage that might legitimately have been in that container. That suitcase was within a few inches of the position later determined to be the centre of the explosion, if not actually in that position.

 
So no, there is no reason at all to suspect Megrahi was “involved in some way”.  He had no other connection to the bombing at all, that is known about.  Since all the people who are in the frame for having something to do with it are connected to various Palestinian terrorist groups, and have no connection at all with Megrahi, it’s nothing but a leap of faith.
 
I can very much sympathise with those who feel they need someone to blame for the disaster, but one has to go with the evidence.  And there is no evidence that Megrahi was “involved in some way” other than the evidence used against him in court.  And that, looked at rationally, actually provides him with an alibi for the crime.


I think that there should be a full review of the case anhd the evidence that was being prepared for Megrahi's appeal, when it was stopped because of his ill health. I'm sure Mr Salmond or Mr MacAskill have the power to order it. And they have nothing to hide.