I'M SCARED TO LOOK

I'm afraid to look. I'm afraid of what I am sure will be paraded across the media outlets of the world. I'm afraid that Scotland will be treated to derision and disbelief by onlookers and commentators from the five continents. The reason? Tomorrow the Scottish Parliament has been recalled in order to discuss Justice Minister McAskill's decision to release Al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. What a comic has called 'a wee pretendy parliament' will demonstrate to the world that not only can you not make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, it will show that cannot get rats out of mice.

Holyrood (always mispronounced 'Hollyrood' both by media and inside personnel) right from the start was a haven for local politicians who never in a month of Sundays or Mondays would have got past the police guard at the gates of Westminster. If any proof is needed, just take in the level of debate thoughtfully provided by the BBC and compare it to Westminster's. Chalk and cheese does not describe it. That's why the Leaping Salmond stands out so much in what excruciatingly passes for debate. In Holyrood, he is a big shark in a pool of minnows, while in Westminster, he was a small shark in an ocean of big sharks.

Regardless of this, I think he will take a more active role in the Megrahi Affair debate than he has done so far. His performance has up to now been muted, if in fact he has not been actually mute, leaving K.McAskill to face the flak, protected only by that tartan curtain he emerged from to let us know he was going to spring Megrahi. The Leaping One has re-developed signs of his cocky self-confidence over the weekend, achieved mostly by repeating the same mantra over and over again, and which I suspect will be shouted out in Animal Farm-like sheep chorus by the massed ranks of SNP MSPs. "Due process, clear evidence". The world will see what a devolved parliament can do tomorrow. No Taiwanese punch ups or Spanish gunplay. Just Scots jumped-up local politicians doing what they do best.

COMINGS AND GOINGS

Done and dusted. The flight of our most celebrated prison resident to his home territory rids us of an unwelcome guest. We are after all as K. McAskill puts it, a peoople who pride ourselves on our humanity. The downside is that the Scottish Executive will probably have a spin machine set up with the sole purpose of preening its ministers and the Greater Silent Salmond on their statesmanship, integrity, international understanding and associated baloney like that. It will not take into consideration the law of unintended consequences.

What are foreign observers to make of our devolved condition, when Scotland's minister for justice disagrees with the UK government's actions, not once but twice in the course of the most important speech in his career?It is hard to escape the conclusion that K McAskill, regardless of how slowly he was speaking, found it hard to avoid delivering the sort of nationalist gibes that the Silent One like to indulge in. Alternatively, foreign observers may start to ask themselves if an SNP administration is some kind of fifth column in the heart of the UK; allegedly devolved but proceeding along different paths in certain fields of public policy. And ask themselves how this can work and how such divergent paths can be reconciled. The Americans in particular are intensely annoyed at the SNP's 'Mouse That Roared' act. The consensus is that when next a variegated bunch of of Scots persons sashay down Fifth Avenue on Tartan Day, they may find themselves talking to themselves and listening to their own bagpipes. New Yorkers have little time for planes falling out of the sky on them. Nor for a country that springs the organiser of the drop-in from jail and calls it humanitarian.

What are we to make of the unwonted, almost evangelical tone that crept into K.McAskill's discourse? The conclusion reads as though one of the SNP's many spinners wrote it for him, with once again nationalist, even Burnsian echoes sounding through it. The strains of 'A Man's a Man... etc can almost be heard. "We pride ourselves on our humanity...." Yeah. If McAskill looks at footage of Al-Megrahi's exodus from Greenock and his arrival at Glasgow Airport, he will hear few cheers of approval from onlookers. Perhaps they were thinking of humanity falling out of the sky in December 1988.

The timing of Al-Megrahi's release carries eerie coincidences with it. His best efforts ensured the downfall of Flight 103 as its passengers were returning home for Christmas. Al-Megrahi returned safe and sound to celebrate the start of Ramadan. Watching his passage down the flight steps to the cries of "Allahu Akbar" makes one wonder how many times that sentiment has been expressed in that context at Friday prayers today. Certainly K. McAskill's actions will do no harm to SNP relations with the Moslem community. Salmond was not so silent when Glasgow Airport was invaded. He and his flunkeys made a beeline to the mosque to reassure Moslems that no one blamed them. The SNP has a history with the Moslem community and it will be interesting to follow the developments and voting implications of K. McAskill's compassion for Al- Megrahi.

Al-Megrahi was on the plane two hours after McAskill finished speaking, lock stock and Libyan intelligence men. After all, he was one of them. The American government is furious. Obama has frowned. Flight 103's victims relations feel cheated. Oil contracts have been signed with Libya. Tony Blair's fingerprints have been discovered. The whole thing stinks.

A NEW WORRY FOR THE TARTAN CHOSEN ONE

These must be uncertain times for the Leaping Salmond, what with the appalling weather on Saturday for the World Piping Championships; the, well, slow trickle homewards Homecoming; the Big Sister bullygirl in Washington laying it on the line for K McAskill re Megrahi, as a result of which he hasn't a clue what to do (does he ever?); calls for Holyrood to be recalled to discuss the whole Lockerbie situation.......the list goes on. What the Leaping One does not want at this time is too close an examination of the relationship of the ruling SNP junta with the Moslem community.

Readers may recall that one of the first actions to take place when a cold blooded attempt to take lives at Glasgow Airport was thwarted, after apparently the right of jurisdiction between Holyrood and the Metropolitan Police had been discussed, was for a rapid state visit to the Islamic community to assure its members that no one blamed them for the outrage. Well and good. It is not too unreasonable to assume that the SNP hierarchy maintains a soft spot for this minority group. What else explains the Mail on Sunday report that a handout of £400 000 for something called an 'IslamFest' to take place in June did not take place at all and that £128 000 has so far been handed back? Such largesse for a marginal cultural clambake makes for hard reading in financially strapped times.

Could it be that The Leaper might face some sharp looks and hard words from Moslem elders if the wrong decision is made about Megrahi? And how would that affect relationships ?

THE DISGRACE OF LOCKERBIE

No one can deny any longer that the whole issue of responsibility for the mass murder of 270 people in a jet over Lockerbie in 1988 is a national disgrace which in its turn has raised other questions, some of them concerning the position of the Scottish Executive within the framework of national foreign policy. Followers of the sometimes tortuous twists and turns of Scottish political life are used to its chief officials, especially Mr Salmond, visibly elbowing their way to the front row of every issue, always with a 'Made in Scotland' tag attached to their intervention. The recent visit of Mr McAskill, Justice Minister, to Ali Megrahi, convicted for the crime, should have had no significance, nor even any purpose. Now Scotland has been placed in the international limelight; McAskill is alleged to be about to make a decision on Megrahi's release; the American Secretary of State has applied a little pressure on him; Salmond is silent; and it now appears that the dog of Britain's foreign policy is being wagged by its devolved Scottish tail. Next week should be interesting.