WHY DIDN'T GORDON COME CLEAN?

It's my belief along with many on the left that Kenny McAskill made the right decision to release the Lockerbie bomber ( alleged) to die at home. Now it seems it was also the view of the Gordon Brown. Not, I agree, a popular or populist view but at least the Scottish administration had the courage of its convictions.Why didn't Brown express his view rather than doing his usual Macavity impression? Labour is now in the worst of all worlds. With many MPs condemning a move which it seems Number 10 backed all along.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Lockerbie-Bomber-David-Miliband-Says-He-Did-Not-Want-Megrahi-To-Die-In-Prison/Article/200909115373036?lpos=Politics_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15373036_Lockerbie_Bomber%3A_David_Miliband_Says_He_Did_Not_Want_Megrahi_To_Die_In_Prison

JIM SWIRE AND LOCKERBIE

My thanks to the eminently sensible Bob Piper for the following quote from Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Laura died in the Lockerbie air disaster. I think many will echo the sentiments expressed..........
I am a Christian, so I would hope that, even if I was convinced that Megrahi was guilty, my Christian compassion and forgiveness would extend to wanting to see him die with his family around him in Libya,” he says. “But I am convinced Megrahi is innocent.”
Swire has become a familiar, dignified face in the media as he has posed questions of the lengthy legal process. His thick mane of hair may have grown whiter before our eyes but this Establishment figure — an Eton and Cambridge-educated doctor from Bromsgrove — has never wavered in his determination to know the facts about the bombing that robbed him of his daughter. “It’s not a head on a platter I want, but the truth.”

NOT A "PHONEY, PRETENTIOUS BITCH"

The above was said of journalist and writer Martha Gellhorn by her husband Ernest Hemingway. I do not agree. I sat up till all hours last night reading Gellhorn's letters spanning 60-odd years I recommend them to anyone in search of late summer holiday reading.

Gellhorn was a woman of immense physical and mental courage who covered the war in Spain, went into Dachau and witnessed the D-Day landings first-hand.

In her sixties, she went to Vietnam, a war she opposed passionately, and she loathed Nixon and the reactionary politics of the Republican Party.In her seventies, she wrote about the miners' strike for the Guardian.

A friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, her political commitment started in her youth when she covered the effects of the Great Depression in a book called The Trouble I've Seen. Which I now intend to try and track down.I will also be checking out her biography, published a couple of years ago .

By conventional standards, Gellhorn's personal life was a mess. Married twice, first to Hemingway and then to a serial philanderer, she was exceptionally bad at picking male companions and she deeply resented the fact that for most of her life she was known by her association with Hemingway rather than her own achievements .

In her youth, she was also exceptionally beautiful and the letters reveal with some poignance that she found it desperately hard to grow old and lose the sexual allure which, ironically, didn't interest her much at the time.

Gellhorn was a contradiction. A radical Democrat with left leanings who hung out ( as we say now) with the English aristocracy. She was clearly a bit of a snob and did not suffer fools gladly but her wit, intellect and style ensured that late in life she attracted a coterie of pals including journalists John Pilger , John Simpson and literati in London who finally got round to giving her writing the credit it was due.

The horrors she had seen in Dachau ( understandably) made her a lifelong champion of Israel and I could not help wondering what she would have made of the current furore over Libya and Lockerbie and the guilt, or otherwise, of Megahri.

My guess is that as a journalist who despised knee-jerk writing and emotional cowardice in any shape or form she would have wanted the truth of what happened in 1988 to be re-investigated - and established. Rather than the current bout of hysteria and abuse being thrown at the Scottish administration.

Those people who perished in the 1988 air crash deserve to have the facts established once and for all. And, whether some people like that or not, that includes the possibility that the wrong man was convicted.

LOCKERBIE AND THE MOB MENTALITY

I have been reluctant to blog this week for several reasons. Largely because the story dominating the media all week has been the release of the "Lockerbie bomber" and I am no expert on the matter. But it does seem clear there is an unreasonable amount of hysteria and newspaper headlines screaming over the release of someone who is shortly about to die anyway. Whose guilt is by no means certain. And who is supported both by people who lost loved ones in the 1988 disaster and by veteran campaigners like Tam Dalyell.
Were the case against Megahri cast-iron maybe I would feel differently. It doesn't seem that way. Perhaps the truth will only emerge after his death. But, on balance, I think I support Kenny McAskill's decision. It can not have been easy in the wake of serious pressure from the US Government and Downing Street. I doubt anyone would make such a decision lightly and for once a senior politician is listening ot the voice of reason, not the mob. Who, like me, are not in possession of all the facts. But seem to feel entitled to condemn anyway.