A split has emerged among senior Labour figures after John Prescott, the party's former Deputy Prime Minister, backed Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill's releasing of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. (...)
Mr Prescott said: "If the man is dying, if compassion is part, as it is, of the Scottish administration and the medical authorities then get proof to that effect, then it's a decision for the legal authority. Scotland has always had a great deal of independence of its legal authority, going back many years, so we have to respect that decision."
Last night, the political row over the Lockerbie decision escalated when Ben Wallace, Shadow Scottish Minister, called on the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee to launch an inquiry into "the role played by the UK Government".
In a letter to Mohammad Sarwar, the committee chairman, Mr Wallace wrote that it was important "to establish if the UK Government made commitments on behalf of the Scottish Government without prior consent or without any constitutional legitimacy and whether ministers did so in exchange for trade or other concessions from Libya".
The Herald can reveal MPs are set to examine the effects of the Lockerbie decision on UK-US relations as part of a formal parliamentary inquiry.In the autumn, the Commons' influential Foreign Affairs Committee will launch an inquiry into the so-called Special Relationship, calling expert witnesses and involving a trip to Washington and the United Nations in New York to interview key US players.
Mike Gapes, the committee chairman, said that he alone could not determine whether the Lockerbie decision would form part of the inquiry but admitted it was likely to. He said: "We will be looking at America and US-UK relations will be an important part of that and involve all the potential areas of difficulty. We never thought of this at the time we decided on the inquiry."
The intervention by Mr Prescott is an embarrassment for Mr Gray and is in contrast to the reluctance of Gordon Brown to offer an opinion on Mr MacAskill's decision.
Angus Robertson, the SNP leader at Westminster, described the comments as "very welcome" saying they underlined "the naked opportunism of Iain Gray and Labour in the Scottish Parliament". (...)
LibDem leader Tavish Scott has called for Holyrood's Justice Committee to examine Megrahi's release.
[From a report in today's edition of The Herald.]
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