Iain Gray supports David Cameron

Labour leader, Iain Gray, has calls for an apology over the Lockerbie bomber's release. In yet another example of attacking the SNP because that is what Scottish Labour does, rather than actually thinking and being a credible opposition. Elmer Fudd has said that Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill should make a public apology if the Lockerbie bomber survives for a full year after his release from prison. Why after a year Mr Gary? Wouldn’t after the 3 months he was supposed to live have been a better anniversary? And how ghoulish is it of all these Labour apparatchiks to be marking these anniversaries anyway?

Megrahi was the only person ever convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, which claimed 270 lives in 1988. Jailed in 2001, the 58-year-old was released on compassionate grounds by Mr MacAskill, who said medical advice gave Megrahi less than three months to live, on August 20th last year. Despite pleas from the US Government to keep the Libyan behind bars.

US senators are still investigating the decision to release Megrahi. Some US politicians have said they suspect BP, which has a £500 million oil deal with Libya, influenced negotiations accusations that have been angrily denied by First Minister Alex Salmond. How ludicrous is it to suggest that the SNP colluded with Labour at Westminster to facilitate a dodgy deal?

In an exclusive interview with the Dundee Courier, Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray said the SNP Scottish Government must provide the US with details of how it reached the decision to free Megrahi, who has always maintained his innocence.

"We have to make it clear to the US what the basis of the decision to release Megrahi was," said Mr Gray yesterday. "I don't believe that lobbying by BP had anything to do with his release. I think it was a decision made by Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond and a decision I think they both got wrong.

"If we reach the anniversary of his release and Megrahi is still alive, I think Kenny MacAskill should apologise and admit he made a mistake and should apologise to the families of the victims."

Asked if he believed Mr MacAskill should resign if Megrahi survives until the first anniversary of his release, Mr Gray said, "I think the time to resign was when he made the wrong decision. I think the most important thing now is to get a change at the next election in May.

"But it's not just about the decision to release Megrahi. Just before the parliamentary recess they passed legislation to release short-term criminals from jails. Obviously, these crimes were not the same as Megrahi's but these are all people released by Kenny MacAskill."We need a change of administration, to one that puts the victims before criminals."

Talk about political opportunism? Now David Cameron can count on the idiot Gray to do his dirty work for him. The vast majority of the Scottish public do not like to see the Scottish Government bullied by US politicians with a hidden agenda the size of Texas nor do they like to see a British Prime Minister prostitute himself to that agenda at the expense of the vaunted respect he was due to show the Devolved Administrations (respect that lasted 2 and a half months). How sickening it must be to see the leader of the supposed opposition grab on to the coat tails of that agenda for very short term political gain. Let’s hope everybody sees this for what it is when they come to cast votes next May.

Who else is on the BP Merry-Go-Round?

"Oh, thank you, Senetor Menendez," said Uriah Hague, "for that remark! It is so true! Umble as I am, I know it is so true! Oh, thank you, Senator Menendez!"

US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have both accepted large donations from a BP employees committee, reports Campbell Gunn in "The Sunday Post".

In the donation period ending in 2008, Obama took $71,051, and Clinton $6,700 from BP staff in donations.

Well, that's an inconvenient turn up for the books.

And three out of the four senators who demanded, and got, a meeting with David Cameron last week over Lockerbie and the BP involvement into the release of Abdelbaset al Megrahi, have taken political donations from a BP staff organisation, leading to accusations of hypocrisy.

Only accusations of hypocrisy?

Oh dear, I wonder if Cameron is regretting all that sickening toadying.

And now Wee Wullie Hague has chimed in by saying that the Scottish Governments decision was “wrong and misguided” in a letter to these same Senators.

Thanks for that Wullie, but if you want to be taken for a ride in America why not try Disneyland next time and hold on to some dignity.

Senator Robert Menendez, who is chairing this week’s Senate investigation into BP’s involvement in the release of the Lockerbie bomber, received $2,000 from the oil giant’s staff committee.

In the donation cycle ending this year, two of the other senators from New York and New Jersey, where many of the bombing victims came from, and who are pressing for an investigation into the bomber’s release, Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, received $750 and $250 each in donations.

The donations don’t come from the company itself but from their Political Action Committee, groups of individuals within BP who wish to donate to a particular politician or party.

A number of major oil companies that now have drilling interests in Libya: Amerada Hess, Marathon Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Occidental Petroleum and ConocoPhillips have made donations to the US Democrats.

In 2010 employees from ConocoPhillips are registered as having made donations to House Democrats of $36,500, Senate Democrats of $17,000. Marathon Oil staff gave House Democrats $28,500, Senate Democrats $22,500.Occidental Petroleum workers made donations to House Democrats of $43,000, and Senate Democrats $14,000. Royal Dutch Shell staff gave Barack Obama $117,946, and Hillary Clinton $20,348.

If anything proves that this whole farrago is nothing less than a smoke screen to divert attention from Obama’s plunging approval rating and Democratic Senators keen to hold on to their sinecures this is it.

The fact of the matter is that the US Democrats do not want to lose control of the Senate come election time in November. To that end they and their President will do ANYTHING.

IF YOU CAN'T SHOW RESPECT FOR SCOTLAND, DON'T EXPECT ANY FROM SCOTLAND

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 government 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