When Gordon Brown stayed out of the sometimes justified, sometimes manufactured (meaning the Tory politicians and not the victims families) outrage over the release of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi it could have been, favourably, viewed as him respecting the authority of the Scottish government and not emasculating it in the same way as George Bush used to do to Tony Blair ( remember ‘Yo Blair’). It was always obvious that, at the very least, he was aware of the wheeling and dealing that must have taken place behind closed doors. The public’s intelligence, no pun intended, is always insulted to some degree when Big Important Things happen.

But the release of the new documents perhaps changes things.

While it’s debatable whether or not the decision to release Megrahi to die of cancer at home in Libya was a slap in the face to the families of the 270 victims, some say it wasn’t, others resoundingly disagree, it definitely seems wrong to throw the politicking back in their face. Anyone who has the view that it was very wrong will
be even more angry at the extra salt being rubbed in.

It seems strange that this information was meant to calm things down and take the heat off Brown and the government. Something doesn’t add up. The information about the meetings in February may, momentarily, deflect attention specifically away from the question of oil, but it could be that someone was stitched up by someone else. If nothing else, it’s a real gift to the Tories. Nevertheless, David Cameron, who can’t even be straight about the way he travels to work, needs to rest himself.

Still, in a week where Brown should have been scoring political points over such things as MEP Daniel Hannan’s gushing comments about Enoch Powell ( his praise of his policies was a bit like saying you’re a fan of Gary
Glitter the musician even while you remain appalled by his other, extremely questionable activities), he’s forced to just flatly deny everything and hope that the mauling taken by the SNP in Holyrood is not a sign of things to come for him.

Meanwhile, Colonel Gaddafi is living it up and celebrating the 40th anniversary of his rise to power in a coup. He may be ever so slightly perturbed that his extravaganza was shunned by many of the world leaders he wanted to attend. But he can’t have failed to notice that, even if he has to spend it in the company of what has been called a ‘rogues gallery’ ( Mugabe, Chavez etc), he’s having a far less stressful week than the politicians on the other end of the Lockerbie issue. If nothing else, something needs to happen to determine once and for all if Megrahi is guilty , although that may just be too real for public consumption). He’s certainly committed many, many big crimes. Something must have been done to earn Gaddafi’s loyalty. Ironically, he might not even live long enough to see whether that happens or not.

Photo: Flickr user Mig_R