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.
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.
posted by JPK @ 9:59 pm
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