Lord Fraser's folly

This is the heading over a letter from David J Black (no relation) in today's edition of The Scotsman. It reads in part:

'Putting aside the fact that Lord Fraser is not, to the best of my knowledge, a qualified clinician, and so cannot possibly pronounce on the matter of whether a bereaved parent may, or may not, be exhibiting the characteristics of so-called "Stockholm syndrome" 20 years after the murder of a beloved daughter, some fundamental issues must surely arise about Lord Fraser's own motives and methods.

'It would appear that he is in receipt of information concerning Mr Al Megrahi's state of health, including a prognosis which indicates that he is expected to die in a few years, rather than a few months. It would be helpful to know who provided such sensitive information to him, since even a detained foreign national in this country has the right to expect a measure of confidentiality as far as his medical records are concerned, except where a court decides that some disclosure may be essential during legal proceedings.

'Some of us might have reason to consider Lord Fraser's comments in a wider perspective. As an invited witness at the Fraser inquiry into the catastrophic Holyrood building project, I was far from alone in being underwhelmed when his "no-one is to blame" report was published in 2004. Lord Fraser today suggests Dr Swire is "too close" to the Lockerbie disaster to have an objective opinion, and thus the "Stockholm syndrome" label is applied as an instrument of denigration. However, it seems to me that it was Lord Fraser who exhibited all the classic symptoms of that particular malaise as a result of being "too close" to those within the UK establishment who sought to minimise their exposure to the Holyrood scandal.

'Lord Fraser should be obliged to send a personal letter of apology to Dr Swire. This is unlikely to happen, of course. So much for the season of goodwill.'