Ethics, idealism and a minister who got it right

After an initial outcry, it looks like most Scots agree with MacAskill’s decision …

By most accounts, the SNP administration should now be in its death throes. "Election threat over Lockerbie scandal" screamed a tabloid paper headline on Monday, "Salmond facing Holyrood revolt as backlash spreads". "Will the bomber topple Salmond?" queried another. (…)

The Labour opposition in Holyrood lost no time with a denunciation of both the decision to release and the actions of the justice secretary leading up to it. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats joined in with attacks of their own. (…)

More disconcerting was the initial reaction within Scotland. This, I felt, quite misread the public mood, both on the decision and the terms in which the justice secretary explained it. I certainly felt that, far from being repelled, the ethical setting struck a deep chord with the feelings of many Scots. (…)

At The Scotsman, our readers’ letters swung decisively through the week in favour of MacAskill’s decision to release, while our online poll went from a very narrow majority opposing his decision to 57 per cent in favour by yesterday afternoon. (…)

Having seen so many adopt the position of instantaneous attack and how opinion has moved from that initial reaction, I cannot but agree with that savvy observer, the writer Kenneth Roy, who said: “There is a growing sense that the media and the political opposition may have misjudged the mood and spirit of a considerable number of thinking Scots.” MacAskill articulated, if clumsily, a sense of ethics and even idealism. When the row dies down, we owe it to ourselves to remember this.

[The above are excerpts from an article in today’s edition of The Scotsman by Bill Jamieson, the newspaper’s Executive Editor. The Scotsman is fiercely opposed to the Scottish National Party government and all its works, which makes this article all the more significant and a pretty clear indication of the way the Scottish political wind is now blowing on the repatriation issue.

Opinion polls show varying results. A telephone poll commissioned by BBC News found that 60 per cent disapproved and 32 per cent approved of the decision.

A MORI poll for Reuters news agency found that 47 per cent disagreed or strongly disagreed with the decision, while 40 per cent agreed or strongly agreed.]