Ex-editor's Megrahi release rant

[The Sunday Times today publishes an article on the compassionate release of Abdelbaset Megrahi. The author is Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun, the UK's most down-market tabloid daily. Apart from the fact that both papers are part of the Rupert Murdoch empire, I can think of no reason for a semi-respectable paper like The Sunday Times to be giving column space to this rant. The following are excerpts.]

Alex Salmond’s government has been exposed as a shocking collection of lickspittles unfit for office.

Its catastrophic decision to release the mass murderer convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was the worst piece of politics I have seen in a long time.

But it is not an argument for a trade boycott of Scotland; it is an argument for a boycott of the SNP at the next election.

The Scottish first minister may have wanted to act the big world statesman taking on the United States before a massive worldwide audience but in his desperation to prove he was not part of a UK-based club he fell flat on his face and the consequences of his administration’s actions will haunt him. (...)

Perhaps we should have expected little else from Scottish devolution and a parliament of lower league players. As David Starkey warned last week Scotland is now governed by a bunch of idiots who might not even make county councillors in England.

But what of the reaction to the Scots themselves to the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi? I was astonished that there wasn’t a bigger uprising by the Scottish people against their government as they watched Megrahi’s hero’s welcome in a sea of Saltires in Tripoli.

I’m not anti-Scottish. If I were trying to paint a picture of a Scottish person I would say they are somewhat cynical and fiercely bright. I just cannot understand how an intelligent, knowledgeable anti-establishment race are just taking it all on the chin and accepting it without turning on the SNP. (...)

Lockerbie was massive and still we have not seen anything quite like it. Even 7/7, shocking as it was, killed only a fifth of the number of the number wiped out in the Pan Am Flight 103 attack so why aren’t Scots as angry about this as I am?

What is it in the Scottish psyche that says this is somehow the correct thing? It’s quite easy to have views about other people’s pain when you haven’t suffered it yourself. No-one has carried out a poll in Lockerbie. I wonder if the people there feel the same way about Megrahi. Kenny MacAskill, the justice minister, looked like a startled rabbit caught in the headlights when he announced his release and blethered about Scottish compassion. Where was the compassion for the victim’s families who are so enraged and were chanting protests outside the United Nations last week. Does anyone care about these people? Who speaks for them? Not the SNP leader or its justice minister and not the Prime Minister of the UK. These people are just left to twist in the wind, they are of no account. (...)

So much for the Scots being poorly served. The Lockerbie bomber killed, by my estimation, around 31 English people, including an entire family living down the road from me. Gordon Brown should have been offering succour and support. He is after all supposed to represent the whole nation, not just those in his Scottish birthplace.

But no. He managed to find time to enquire after the health of Susan Boyle but cannot find time to pick up the phone to the relatives of the Lockerbie victims, let alone address the public, to explain it. Instead they are viewed as a problem who have to be handled in a cunning and disgusting manner.

It’s Brown whose gut-wrenching cowardice really aggravates me. His every decision is masked in deceit. Why didn’t he just stand up and say whether he agreed with what was going on and what would come of it? (...)

If the people of Scotland really believe that Megrahi should have been sent home then they are so detached from the people of England that it is probably best that they set off on their own path to independence sooner rather than later.