Sunday 10 October 2010

New PM, same old Tory

[This is the heading over a letter by Graeme H Bettison in today's edition of the Sunday Herald. It reads as follows:]

Lots of stupid things are said, especially at party conferences. My award goes to Prime Minister Cameron, quoted as saying that the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber was wrong and that “nothing like that must ever happen again”. How stupid is that?

For one, how many other Libyan nationals are in our prisons? Also, Mr Cameron is the one person who really could act on his own words. He could undo the prisoner transfer agreement between the UK and Libya, but perhaps that was not something he had included in his election manifesto. [Note by RB: The UK Government could, of course, scrap the UK-Libya PTA. But that was not the mechanism whereby Mr Megrahi was released. The UK Government could not, under the current constitutional arrangements, scrap compassionate release. Justice and prisons are devolved to Holyrood.]

I wonder whether it might just be another of his hollow, stupid things to say – to side himself with those who found the Scottish Government’s decision difficult, if not impossible, to accept – and so use the tragedy as a party-political point-scorer.

I had, once, hoped that the mold of the last Tory era was something that should never happen again. The “generation game” conveyor belt of policies and on-the-hoof dancing around are more akin to Saturday night TV than proper government, and this makes me feel that it was a stupid thing for me to hope for.

After all, I am only a “thick” Scot.

3 comments:

  1. We shouldn't forget that the chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party, Mr Andrew Fulton, is a British secret service man with long-term CIA connections, who was appointed by Glasgow University to handle media briefings at the time of the original trial.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We shouldn't forget that the chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party, Mr Andrew Fulton, is a British secret service man with long-term CIA connections, who was appointed by Glasgow University to handle media briefings at the time of the original trial.

    According to The Diplomatic Service List, 1989:

    Fulton, Robert Andrew; Counsellor, FCO since May 1987; born 6.2.44: Third Secretary FCO 1968; Third later Second Secretary Saigon 1969; FCO 1972; First Secretary Rome 1973; FCO 1977; East Berlin 1978; FCO 1981; Counsellor Oslo 1984; m. 1970 Patricia Mary Crowley (2s 1972, 1974; 1d 1979).

    ReplyDelete