Run That By Me Again - Are You For Or Against?

The PM is back on form. Renewed and invigorated after his break, he is on top of his game.

A person blows 270 people out of the sky - a mass murderer in anyone's understanding of the term. There are few more dreadful crimes a person can commit. Yet the PM did not have an opinion on whether the man should have been released or not - for compassionate or any other reason. The one thing he was relieved about was that someone else - namely the Scottish Justice Minister - could be blamed and so the PM was at pains to identify him and the 'fart in the space suit'. The man no one wants around them.

You see, he was keen to congratulate Andrew Strauss and the England boys for regaining the Ashes. Proud moment - positive press - good association - people will remember it was on his watch whereas Blair claimed the glory last time - MBEs or something all round for the lads - popular move for a hip PM. But when it comes to commenting on the release of the Lockerbie bomber he hangs back despite the country he was born and bred in actually had their flags waved outside the plane that delivered a mass murderer home. According to the TV last night and expert opinion, the Lockerbie Bomber did not even fall within the guidelines for compassionate release as his 'terminalness' was not within a 3 month window.

Whatever - the man did not deserve to be released. Not one of his victims was treated with a singe jot of compassion when he made sure his suitcase full of explosives was put on board. What makes his life worth anything more than a single one of theirs?

The standard excuse is that we are a compassionate society and have a similar judicial system. I'm sorry but that's rubbish. More and more crimes will be punished in the eyes of the Police with fines in the future without the judicial system being involved, denying the right to habeas corpus for a range of offences right up the harming other people or stealing. There is no compassion there - wallop, guilty, serve your sentence, pay your fine. At one end of the spectrum we are actually being harder on minor offences giving no right of compassion but are being compassionate to the worst offenders.

Where is the sense in any of that?

You commit crime - you are punished. It seems the more severe crime you commit, proportionally the less of the sentence you will serve. It's a stupid, stupid position to adopt and shows how twisted our whole justice system is. You are disproportionately hit harder, without recourse to proper law for the least harmful of crimes like parking, speeding or smoking dope.

But, hey. At least we won the Ashes and it was on Gordon's watch. Eat dirt, Cameron.

Can It Look Any Better?

Well, frankly, it cannot look any worse. Or maybe it can?

I am talking of the clamour by Scottish Ministers to try to justify the decision to release the Lockerbie Bomber. It doesn't matter how you read the statements or how they try to make the USA's position weaker by saying they were offered a choice and indicated compassionate release was preferable which does not seem to fit in with the Director of the FBI's recollection.

Then again, everybody is distancing themselves from the Scottish decision. Col Gadaffi praised his 'good friend, Gordon Brown' while Peter Mandelson dismissed suggestions of a deal, 'offensive'. He should know.

You see Gadaffi's son is now recanting, via spokespeople, that he actually said that the Bomber's release was on the negotiating table when it came to trade. It is very interesting as Gadaffi's son and Mandelson met while in Corfu recently as Mandy took the sun on David Geffen's yacht.

William Hague has called on the Government to clarify its role in the release of the Bomber, since Gordon Brown is now known to have written to Col Gadaffi beforehand to plead for restraint on the welcoming committee that the Bomber would receive on his release. This is a very clear sign that the Government was fully aware of the release and knew what the Libyans would do. It was almost as if Brown was reminding Libya of the terms of the deal and it really indicates that Brown knew much more about it than he would like us to think.

They say there is no smoke without fire. Follow the trail. Mandelson has a history of intervening on behalf of rich friends he meets in exotic locations, particularly on swanky yachts. If nothing more should come of this, someone ought take Mandelson aside and remind him that the Blair era of freebie holidays with dodgy characters like Silvio Berlusconi or Gadaffi's son are over.

It has been the Hallmark of a Government that is increasingly looking corrupt and bankrupt of decent values.

Compassion or Dispassion?

The sight of a Scottish flag being waved outside the plane carrying the convicted Lockerbie bomber home to Libya amid ecstatic welcomes only worthy of a national hero must gag in the throat of every member of a family who were directly affected by the actions of the man, let alone the rest of us who still remember exactly where we were the terrible night it happened.

President Obama found it 'Highly objectionable', Alistair Darling found it 'Distasteful' and Prime Minister Brown had even pre-begged Libyan Leader Colonel Gadaffi to act with restraint on the bomber's return but it did not stop his son personally leading the celebrations and hugging the mass murderer or the Colonel himself later greeting him as a long lost relative.

In some respects, you reap what you sow. After the events of 9/11, for no obvious reason, the US' perennial nemesis, Libya, was invited back into the mainstream despite it being a clear hotbed of terrorism and anti-Western activity with the Colonel himself right at the centre. But as with all things in Politics, everything is negotiable and there was lots to be gained by healing the weeping sores caused by Gadaffi in the US. So they stopped bombing him and started loving him. Repeated visits and ceremonious meetings have occurred since and there was even a Royal visit scheduled this year - a momentous year being the 40th since Gadaffi ceased power.

There are fundamental issues at stake here. On the one hand we have the Political grandstanding as Menzies Campbell took the opportunity to criticise an inexperienced SNP Government who he clearly feels are not fit to rule a nation yet. It brings into stark question whether Britain should have so avidly pursued devolution and allowed Scotland to govern itself. It brings into fuzzy focus the reasons as to why George W Bush and Tony Blair decided to allow Gadaffi back into the global race and take a seat like a true statesman at places like the UN.

On the other hand we have the issue about a compassionate legal system that allows sick prisoners to go home to die amongst friends and family or get a hero's welcome for having blown 270 people out of the air above Lockerbie. In a week which saw Ronnie Biggs go home to make a remarkable recovery, we now see another piece of compassion be thrown right back into our compassionate faces and watch in shock as a mass murderer became a national hero.

There is the final aspect and perhaps the Libyan view. This man was a scapegoat and had the blame for the horrific events pinned on him in the absence of no one else obvious to blame. That is something that may well have run through the Scottish Justice Minister's mind when making this incredible decision.

In terms of homecomings, it was a very different hero's welcome afforded to the 4 fallen heroes returning from Afghanistan who got the now customary slow procession through the streets of Wootton Bassett. But somewhere in all the froth of politics and self-interest there is a connection.

Wars and terrorism start with politics and they are a direct consequence of bad politics.

In this instance, there was always going to be some ulterior motive as to why a convicted mass murderer would be allowed to go home to die. Now we see it - trade. Gadaffi's son is now reported to have said that the Lockerbie bomber's release was always on the negotiating table when it came to trade and back in 2007, Tony Blair wafted through a huge deal on behalf of BP, the sort of favours that get you seats on boards of investment banks. As late as a few weeks ago, Lord Mandelson met Gadaffi's son on the fancy yacht in Corfu and by some odd coincidence within a short space of time we see the bomber released.

Miliband has rather defensively said that it would be a 'slur' to say the Government was involved in the release of the bomber so that Scotland can be isolated as the floating 'turd in the swimming pool' here. But we would all be very naive to think that a man who put a bomb on a plane and blew 270 people out of the sky gets released just because he is dying.

You can bet your shirt that there are some politicians, back room mandarins and investment bankers who might just have been a little embarrassed about all this and the their involvement. Compassion was the last thing on their minds - they will rather dispassionately get on with the business of making money to morrow when the furore dies down and gain as a result.

For there is one thing you can be sure about, the Lockerbie bomber was a pawn in a much bigger game where the stakes are very high.

You want to know the biggest reason why I say that - go read Gordon Brown's letter to Col Gadaffi. That was the clearest sign that this was a pre-planned exercise and that he also knew that Libya would make great mileage out of it.

As usual, we will never get to the bottom of this matter. Politicians will point fingers but there are no better people at covering their tracks. For certain, the one body of people who were never consulted on this whole 'compassionate affair' were the relatives and loved ones of the victims of Lockerbie. They were the last people on the minds of the people who were complicit in this decision.

As they did that fateful night, I am sure our hearts go out to them and we all bow our heads in shame that they should relive the terrible pain because someone, somewhere wanted more trade with Libya - and once again, bad politics.

For shame on us all.

Questions Of Science

The problem with reading a copy of New Scientist on a short flight is that it rekindles the lost academic potential within you - it's a slim chance at the best of times but some 25 years ago science was my best hope of a career. Now I struggle to spell Avagadro let alone remember the man of Turin's famous number but that's life, I suppose.

So I pose a little question - which of the four fundamental forces in nature baffles scientists most as the other three can be explained by the exchange of force-carrying particles? Let me put you out of your misery - it's gravity. Einstein explained it as the force which arises from the smooth warping of space-time by massive objects. Does that sound double dutch to you? I hope so. For the layman, the explanation of 'smooth' is anything which behaves according to a nice equation however much the said equation looks like a set of scripts from a Dead Sea Scroll.

Gravity is the one force which cannot be explained by quantum theory. There have been approximations and strings but realistically they are merely theories which have yet to be proven by any physical evidence.

I put forward another natural phenonemon which defies 'particular' definition and constantly elludes the wit of man - coincidence. This is the happenstance of two seemingly unrelated events occurring from which we may may infer a connection, however tenuous. Well that's my definition anyway. I am talking about the bizarre oddment of me being in Berlin and reading about the premier of 'I,Robot' on the plane over and then literally bumping into Will Smith on the pavement outside the Four Seasons Hotel less than a few hours later. Finer analysis would have shown that the article was in the BA magazine, advertising the route to Berlin where the premier of 'I,Robot' was taking place because Audi were a major sponsor - so the scene was set, the stars aligned. If I happened to be walking along the road at roughly the time Will, as he likes to be called, was going to the cinema with his family then I would bump into him.

That can be explained when using probability theory and the two itineraries (Will's and mine) - we happened to be in the same place at the same time so it may have been more likely we would have bumped into one another. But consider this - and yes I get political here because I am sick to death of it and I cannot stand the man - that Peter Mandelson is invited to have a free holiday on the luxurious, multi-million dollar boat of a very significant player in the world of films and downloads (we are talking David Geffen of Dreamworks here) and less than a week later officials are told to draft laws to punish illegal downloaders of content, even if it is the people who post the content who are doing the real wrongs.

But Peter defies the statistical evidence much more than this. On the same holiday, he has a chance meeting with Colonel Gaddafi's lush looking son and next thing we know the Lockerbie bomber is freed. Fancy that. It reminds us of other rather coincidental events - like the Hinduja Brothers wanting UK passports so there is a donation to the Dome Fund. Or perhaps that Peter spends time on a Russian aluminium tycoon's yacht and then there is an EU vote in favour of lowering tariffs on importing the self same commodity making the self same oligarch incredibly more wealthy. By an an even more science-defying coincidence, the very pages in Peter's diaries covering the dates of the first meeting with the self same oligarch are 'lost' while he is moving back from Brussels and having a gall bladder issue solved.

I wish I had the scientific nous to define a theory to govern all this but it elludes a feeble brain like mine. My curse is to wonder why a twice disgraced dodgy dealer is allowed back into Government as an unelected offical and peer of the realm and then gets to run the country. That is the one thing you cannot put down to the strange law of coincidence - this was premeditated stupidity on behalf of the weakest PM we have had since Chamberlain.

One thing which is not a coincidence is that on the weekend that Gordon Brown chose to continue his holiday and not to open a centre for injured troops we found out that the tally of dead heroes in Afghanistan rose to 204 and the toll of injured troops was over 900 in the last three months alone.

Science can be baffling - the obvious can be even more baffling.