Ghoul's Draw!

In a previous employment, many moons ago, some of my colleagues of a ghoulish inclination set up an office 'Ghoul's Draw'. For those of you of normal human feelings, this was a sweepstake in which participants selected a celebrity and put a certain amount of cash into the pot. Whichever celebrity died first won the pot for the selecting member of staff.

Not particularly edifying, I know, but possibly slightly less boak-inducing than the sight of senior politicians from the UK and US falling over themselves to claim first dibs on the right to demand the death of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in Greenock Jail, and condemning the Scottish Government for employing the law to release a man to die at home.

Leaving aside the somewhat knotty problem of guilt or innocence, it makes me grue to listen to all this 'violent agreement' - especially knowing that it has little or nothing to do with politicians concerns for the feelings of Pan Am flight 103 - but is concerned with claiming party political advantage in forthcoming elections, and being able to blame BP, or Tony Blair, or Gordon Brown, or (especially) Kenny MacAskill - even if our US cousins will hardly have heard of him. Even our First Minister, on (UK) Newsnight was so keen to have a go at David Miliband's entry into the debate, that he invented a reference to him in their preceding report! (Perhaps he had been shown the corresponding Newsnicht report that did mention him). You were in the right, Alex - you didn't need that.

I recall, at the time of Mr MacAskill's decision, thinking that - while he had made some errors in how he acted - his basic decision was one I supported, and I was deeply disappointed in the attitudes of opposition parties (of all shades) who attempted to make political capital. I also thought - and still think that the decision reflected well on Scotland - and the hostility expressed by some (especially American) commentators, reflected poorly on them.

During the General Election campaign - and despite the assertion by at least one London commentator* that the poor showing of the SNP was down precisely, to this compassionate release decision - it certainly did NOT feature as any kind of a major issue here. I had the impression, that whatever individuals' views on release, there was acceptance that it was a difficult decision, arrived at after full investigation.

It seems clear - whatever veils David Cameron wishes to pull across Barack Obama's eyes - that the decision was legal, decent, and taken after proper advice, and without lobbying either directly or indirectly. Gordon Brown was publicly clear that it was a decision for the Scottish Government, and had he expressed a view (one way or the other) it would have been (rightly) seen as interference.

Its a pity that his successor is so keen to heap blame on that government, that he is willing to exploit the dead and dying to do so.

*David Runciman, in the London Review of Books - http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n10/david-runciman/is-this-the-end-of-the-uk