Hard Graft

The decision has been made. The man has been released. It is clear that the die has been cast.

The decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds is a controversial yet fascinating verdict. While this may not be of comfort to the families of the many victims of the Pan-am disaster, the release came after weeks of careful consideration by the SNP’s Justice Minister. This was despite fruitless protests by the United States government and an American media and public who, like with the current highly offensive shouting match over the NHS, have absolutely no idea how “the system” works in the United Kingdom.

The most interesting and slightly ironic part of this whole drama was when an American public, who for years had quite happily supported Scottish calls for at least more authonomy from those nasty English in London, suddenly look to that same “English” government in London to somehow overrule the Scottish Justice Minister and somehow keep “the guilty man” in jail.

Yes, the irony and indeed the hypocrisy was almost delicious if it wasn’t for the rather morbid situation in which both the bereaved and the guilty find themselves in.

The decision by Kenny MacAskill was not wrong but the reaction of the Scottish Nationalist administration in Edinburgh raised eyebrows as it now seems obvious that they were not expecting outrage on the scale that has been seen in the past few weeks, nor were they expecting the British government to stay absolutely silent on the matter.

On the issue of whether deals were done behind the scenes is a different matter. That somehow the SNP were swayed by their bitter rivals in the British government to release al-Megrahi on the off chance that Scottish business may, may be able to get a cut of some of these rumoured “business deals” agreed between British & Libyan companies is very far fetched. I wouldn’t trust Peter Mandleson to look after my stamp collection but I trust him enough to not include Scottish First Minister Alex Sammond in his list of enemies to keep closer than friends.

And as for the Americans, their anger is fair but they made a serious miscalculation when they thought that any protest to the British government would be able to influence affairs north of the border. This decision rests exclusively with the Scottish Government as matters of law, legal judgements and justice lie with the Scots and the Scots alone.

On this point, this whole saga has revealed how uneasy Scottish governments, be they Labour, SNP or coalition, are with unfavourable diplomatic crises. They are very adept at sending aid when Tsunamis hit or high fiving and back slapping with their fellow renegades of funk in Quebec or Catalonia but when faced with the prospect of an angry Secretary of State and a director of the FBI literally spitting bile in rage and anger then you see a kind of paralysis that makes you feel decidedly uncomfortable. Alex Sammond has been pretty quiet as of late during the entire saga but that is understandable considering that he never gets invited to anything more than an audience with possibly the worst interviewer in BBC history and “politiks 4 beginerz, lol/The Daily Politics.

For devolution (and possible independence) to stick, the constituent stakeholders (i.e. England, Scotland, Wales & Ulster) need to learn to be confident on the world stage. If Scotland never represented itself abroad, never signed deals or shook hands or gave its opinion then how would it be able to sell itself to the world, galvanise Scottish exports and encourage outside investment?

This isn’t a question of independence rather a question of Scotland being able to stick up for Scotland and sadly seeing an SNP administration caught in the headlights isn’t giving me the best of vibes.

Sadly the lessons that need to be learnt from this interesting period of Scottish politics will be lost inevitably in a cacophany of childish table thumping when MSPs gradually slink back reluctantly from their summer recess. Ah well, it was interesting while it lasted I guess..

EDIT: A superb article by BBC Scotland’s Brian Taylor on the current situation. Why he hasn’t got a decent job presenting Newsnight or interviewing the biggest politicians on Sunday mornings I don’t know. Oh, wait, I know why; its because he’s reasonably competent which can’t be said for the current bunch of drips occupying BBC News these days.