And another thing…

It’s theoretically possible, if unlikely, that Gordo and Salmond did a deal over amendments to devolved powers whereby the SNP take the flak for releasing al-Megrahi in return for a better deal with respect to self-governance when amendments are tabled in Westminster.

Did this happen, though? I have absolutely no idea.

Blackmail?

High speed rail line from London to Scotland to be funded entirely by the UK taxpayer. No links found between rail link and release of al-Megrahi.

Just a thought.

Labour has worked hand and glove with the SNP behind the sceens. Of course its all about oil. Labour has not secured our energy future so thats another thing thr Tories will have to sort out.

Can we not celebrate, for once, an act of human kindness. Doesn’t Jesus say something about heaping coals on the heads of enemise we forgive?

So you mean we had a wonderful political bargaining tool and the Scottish government gave him away for free? That’s even worse.

@Johnny Norfolk

I really dont think you understand Scottish politics. The idea that Labour and the SNP ‘worked hand and glove’ is really just laughable.

If you look at what happened, the SNP deliberately (in my view) snubbed the prisoner transfer, specifically as a 2 fingers up to Labour in London at the grubby way in which it was signed by Blair.

This meant they were able to do 2 key things: take an independent decision, thrusting Scotland Government into the international arena. And in 1 crush all criticism that they are a populist policy administration only. This criticism cannot be levelled at them again after this decision.

I agree with you Tom, but what about the old double bluff conspiracy theory though?

Knowing that Salmond will want to show the complete independance of Scotland, particularly in view of the protestations of Hillary Clinton and scumbag Kennedy, Gordon Brown ‘phones Salmond and MacKaskill to instruct them NOT to release Megrahi, in the sure knowledge that AS would do exactly the opposite.

Problem solved, Brown meets the condition of whatever deal he has struck with Gaddafi,Scotland gets the blame and Brown walks away saying ‘I told you so’.

Tom, considering Sunny Hundal’s “brown people should vote Tory” brainwave, anything’s possible.

This is still the UK and scotland should not be allowed to make a decision on its own that could affect the whole country as in this case. Labour must have given the nod and that is why Brown has not condemed it.

Fact 1) A prisoner transfer scheme between the UK and Libya has just been agreed.

Fact 2) Libya has no UK prisoners

Fact 3) Prisoners must have ended all appeals before being considered for release.

Fact 4) Megrahi was planning to appeal again.

Fact 5) Megrahi has cancer and will probably die within the next 3-12 months, long before any appeal would have concluded.

Result – rather then begin a long and costly (£10m+) retrial which would undoubtedly end before it concludes (due to the death of the defendant) the scots decided to simply hand him over in return for his acceptance of the original verdict.

I fail to see where there is room for a conspiracy.

If the Scottish legal system, the CIA, the FBI and UK security services are in danger of being found to have conspired to pevert the course of justice, there’s all the motivation you nef to release Megrahi.

@ David Gale.

You forgot the Bildeberg Group, the Vatican and the illuminati…

I assume that David gale is talking about the evidence that was going to be presented at appeal and the effect that that would have had on the credibility of the legal process.

We cannot allow this silly talk of trade deals to deflect us from the urgent need for a wide-ranging, independent public inquiry, that takes on board the evidence that was to have been presented at appeal.

Conspiracy theories are for those with too much time , not enough work and a lack of proportion in my view..

Since most of Scotland’s oil services are struggling for work and Libya has loads of work and NONE is or WAS going to the UK until Megrahi is released – as Tony Blair is alleged to have promised in 2007 – what is the SNP going to do?

Answer : desperately try to release Megrahi, persuade him to drop his appeal..and then let him go.

ALl based on information in the public domain. No conspiracy tehories there.

Equally the Government, knowing the whole affair is going o look bad, keep their counsel, put nothing in writing and hope MacAskill – who has a record of being a dogooder and soft on crime – releases Megrahi.

Result: SNP get balme, Labour crap all over SNP, Gordon Brown says nothing.

That seems to sum up the FACTS.

All we wait for is the Wood Group or Melrose Resources or other Scottish oil groups to get some contracts in Libya either directly or via BP..

No conspiracy, Labour playing dirty politics and the SNP being naive.

No stretch of the imagination needed. No conspiracy, simple greed, underhand dealings and a mystic eyed view of the world and how mass murders who have never shown remorse can be released when no other country in the world would…

I’m with Tosh on this one.

Where *do* people get this idea that Peter Mandelson can’t have dinner with a billionaire without promising to deliver him Britain on a platter, spit-roasted, stuffed, and with an apple in its mouth?

I mean it’s not like he’s a form horse or anything.

Tom,

Rather than expect the electorate to guess exactly the kind of deal made (if any) why can’t MP’s ask our beloved PM and our favourite Lord what Gaddafi’s son is on about?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/28/lockerbie-bomber-saif-gaddafi

Someone is lying – either Gaddafi or Brown & Lord Mandy. The question is “who ?” It’s absolutely irrelevant what the SNP thought they were getting.

Why can’t YOU, Tom Harris MP, table a written question and ask ?

Sorry Tom – no-one out here in Realworldsville believes a word Lord Meddlsome utters. That he is also Secretary For Vested Interests doesn’t help as well. I fund him really quite repulsive, and the last time I heard him interviewed on the Today programmes, he was so rude and offensive I nearly drowned the radio.

@ Madasafish The information isn’t all in the public domain. The evidence that was going to be produced in support of the appeal needs to be put into the public domain. The UN’s special observer Dr Köchler has already denounced the appeal process as having “more in common with an intelligence services operation than a judicial process”, with the UK government, in particular, refusing to provide documentation requested by the defence.

I have no problem with there not having been a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice at the original trial but, if they’ve got nothing to hide, let’s reinitiate the very process that’s been halted by Megrahi’s release. Show us the defence’s appeal evidence.

I’ve got a different theory. Say Mandelson had behind-the-scenes knowledge that Kenny was leaning towards a release decision, regardless of what G.Brown and co. did. Well, if he knows in advance that Al-Megrahi is going to be released anyway why not pretend that a little bit of gratitude/trade/free holidays would ‘help’ the decision along? Nudge-Nudge, Wink-wink.

@ Thomas

I still think everyone’s reading far too much into this.

His release was always a given as soon as it became clear that he was too sick to survive his appeal. Keeping him in jail meant embarking on a costly and ultimately futile retrial that he wouldn’t have lived to see the end of…

If they didn’t let him out, what did he have to lose?

@ Richard

I’m not sure why you’ve addressed your comments to me. My point was that if Al-Megrahi was going to be released by the SNP minster anyway, I wouldn’t put it past Mandelson to try to milk the situation.

Your right to say that it avoids an appeal. Someone who was a conspiracy theorist (which I don’t think either of us are) might argue the motivation for scuppering an appeal was the suppression of inconvenient evidence. As I say, I don’t think the ’suppression theory’ holds water though.

I’m not sure that the cost of an appeal (with a a slim possibility of leading to a retrial) is really significant though. Especially when it’s a decision of international significance, with knock-on effects from patriotic American holiday makers et al. voting with their feet.

***Someone who was a conspiracy theorist might argue the motivation for scuppering an appeal was the suppression of inconvenient evidence. As I say, I don’t think the ’suppression theory’ holds water though***

Fine, so there shouldn’t be anything to hide. There have been multiple statements from those who have seen the new appeal evidence that it proves a conspiracy to frame Megrahi.

Easily dealt with: publish the appeal evidence within a public inquiry and we can all live happily ever after.

@ Thomas

I was addressing your ‘different theory’ conjecture. I honestly think there was no conspiracy, nor was mandelson trying to milk the situation. Relations with tripoli have been normalising for months anyway.

“… however low one’s opinion is of the SNP and the administration they run from Edinburgh, Salmond and his gang are as likely to take orders from Labour as Guido is to take instructions from Sunny Hundal.”

So your opinion of the Scottish administration would increase should they simply do what the UK Government says. Not sure that is how most in Scotland would view that is how devolution should work, but Labour MPs obviously think differently.

“So your opinion of the Scottish administration would increase should they simply do what the UK Government says.”

You have a unique logic, Pippy. Perhaps what I should have written, so as not to confuse you, was: “however low one’s opinion is of the SNP and the administration they run from Edinburgh, even Salmond and his gang are as likely to take orders from Labour as Guido is to take instructions from Sunny Hundal.”

In other words, a devolved administration taking orders from London would be A Bad Thing. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

hi tom

just got back from my holidays and finally got to realise a dream….i went on the houses of parliament tour and got to go into the house of commons! wow….

and thats where it ends….my love of politics, my love of this blog was suddenly washed away when i asked the tour guide why we were not allowed to sit on the sits?

“its the rules” she replied

“yes but why?” i replied politely

“i dont know its just the rules” she finished…..

and i thought thats what really sums up politics in the uk.

1. one man gets to let out a convicted murderer, terrorist and we get no say

2. daniel hannan goes to america, gives a decent interview on the nhs and then gets called unpatriotic!

3. mps in the uk fleece the uk taxpayer of expenses and then blame the rules…

4. the prime minister has never been elected by anyone to run this country

5. we send our young men to their deaths in a war just so people can vote in a country where women still cover themselves completely even though we talk of democracy

6. we talk of terrorism in the uk and the only two places that i found in london that happens to be loaded with police protection, bollards, your photo taken on entrance (including my son who is 7!) is 10 downing street and the houses of parliament!

we finished our tour when the lady guiding us asked my older son (11) if he would like to be an mp?

no he said!

and i thought who would want to be?

what do they actually do for us?

how can one man make a judgement like this regarding libya?

what power does he have, what the hell are we doing entrusting this sort of power to one man?

why is it when someone like daniel hannan (a pretty decent bloke from what i have read and seen of him) speaks harshly about the nhs do we have ridiculous mp’s telling us that this is unpatriotic? for god sake the nhs is a mess most of the time…cant we just admit that?

why is that no politicans have actually lost their jobs (i.e. sacked without pay) for fleecing us with their expenses?

how can a prime minister simply enforce himself on our people, stay when it is clear he is not wanted and then tell us we he cares about poor people and yet makes people even more poorer by assisting in the destruction (at the beginning at least) of their country?

their is a plaque inside westminster which details the mp’s who’s children died in the great wars….?

how many of them would be on that list now?

thought not….

lets be honest what do mp’s actually do for any of us?

the ghurkas had to be dealt with by an a tv star!

so i sat my two sons down at the end of the night and they said they probably would not want to be mp’s!

do you blame them?

thats its from me tom….i hope you publish this because as much as i enjoy your blogs i just realised that i would much rather go for a nice walk on the beach with my kids than write on this blog…nothing personal just think their is far more to life and my dream of going to the house of commons?

the place was beautiful, you have a great place to work but somehow it just seemed to unreal to me.

night tom and thanks for taking the time to read my previous comments i enjoyed yours too!

p.s. welcome back to V…what an ace series!

Trade deal? Never! Over to you, Tom. But first, read on…

Deal for Megrahi release two years in the … pipeline

From The Sunday Times August 30, 2009
Lockerbie bomber ’set free for oil’
Jason Allardyce

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests

@ Simon D.

Maybe they just didn’t like your face. When I went on the HoC tour our MP arranged for us to sit on the benches, hold a mock debate and even had some printed hansard sheets for us to read from (thatcher’s announcement of the victory in the Falklands in case anyone’s interested).

[...] Curly, calling Tom Harris, Curly calling Tom Harris. WELL, of course it wasn’t — what a bloody stupid question! [...]

“Was Al-Megrahi’s release part of a trade deal?

WELL, of course it wasn’t — what a bloody stupid question!” – Tom Harris, 28th August

“Jack Straw has admitted the Government caved in to Libyan demands that the Lockerbie bomber be included in a prisoner transfer deal with Britain.” – Telegraph, 30th August

You ought not to be so trusting of what the Government says. There’s a reason the rest of us are sceptics.

[...] Tom Harris points out a flaw in the idea that the release was part of a trade deal – namely that an SNP [...]

This is to Mark M – all Tom was saying in his very sensible posting was that the decision to release was not part of a trade deal.

What you’re referring to is the British Govt’s decision to pave the way for a Prisoner Transfer Agreement between the UK and Libya which would have meant Al Megrahi COULD have been considered for a transfer. The letter from Jack Straw indicates that his decision not to exclude Al Megrahi from this PTA was related to trade.

However, Kenny MacAskill did not release him as part of the PTA. He released him on compassionate grounds. It’s completely separate and as Tom rightly points out, there is no way in this world that the SNP govt would have done the bidding of the Lab Govt. Trust me, there is NO way. The SNP govt makes decisions based on 2 things – 1) what it believe is best for Scotland and 2) what it believes to be right – nothing else.

I very rarely comment tom, but i read your blog on a regular basis. I don’t always agree with your commemts, actually hardly ever do, but your comment, and your blog, is a must read. Your point of view, while seemingly not appreciated by your own party, is certainly appreciated by me. More power to your elbow.

I doubt it was even a part of a deal where Scotland gets Libya’s secret remaining nukes . . .