Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

After both the Manchester and London Bridge terror attacks, party political campaigning was briefly suspended.  However, Islamic terrorism has inevitably become an important issue in this general election and, rather ironically, Jeremy Corbyn is on the offensive , criticising Theresa May and the Conservatives for imposing cuts on the police that put public safety at risk. This is not a subject on which the Labour leader has much credibility.  Not only has he a long record of sympathising with terrorist causes, he and his associates have also actively opposed many of the security agencies that are charged with keeping us safe.  The blogger Guido Fawkes points out that , just three years ago, Corbyn defended the idea that young British people who had fought for ISIS in Syria should be allowed to return to the UK without “legal obstacles”. The Labour leader also argues that British foreign policy, including military involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and ...

What a month to debate military intervention in another country’s affairs!  The 24th of March marks the twelfth anniversary of NATO bombing Yugoslavia.  The supposed success of that mission buoyed the interventionists, inspired Tony Blair and set the scene for a bloody decade to come.       Now the Gaddafi regime is proving resistant to concerted internal opposition to remove it and peaceful western pressure for it to go.  Yesterday David Cameron asked his Ministry of Defence to draw up plans for a “no fly zone” in Libya, which could prevent the Colonel bombing his enemies.  It’s not Belgrade 1999, but the rhetoric about not “standing idly by” has a similar ring.  Nick Robinson asks whether this could be "Cameron's first war" . No wonder some Libyans are nervous.  They need only look at Iraq to see the possible costs of western “help“.  The debate still rages as to whether the country is better off, now that its bloodthirsty dictato...

There won't be too many posts on the blog this week, but I will briefly draw your attention to another Belfast Telegraph article , which considers the Megrahi mess.  The edit lost a little of the thrust of the original, so the text below is a little different to the published column.   I consider the chain of events which set in train the bomber's release and conclude: [It's} Hardly surprising that after the release took place last August, opponents alleged Labour was secretly delighted.  The party had secured its preferred outcome without getting its hands dirty.  A nationalist Scottish Executive, flexing its muscles and styling itself a ’government’, was more than happy to boast that it had reached its decision independently. When Kenny MacAskill appeared in front of the world’s press to deliver a crowing speech about the unique ’humanity of the Scottish people’, he didn’t expect that his ruling would cause the SNP to crash in the polls.  Nor could he an...

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of ‘The Illusion of Freedom’ , Tom Gallagher’s examination of the minority nationalist administration in Scotland, released later this month. Its author has written previously about links between the SNP and Islamist groups, particularly the Scottish Islamic Foundation, directed by Osama Saeed, a parliamentary candidate for Alex Salmond’s party in Glasgow Central. Picking up on an allusion to the SNP’s connection with radical Islam, below, Alec has pointed me in the direction of this excellent blogpost , which highlights upon some of the funding issues surrounding the SIF. Last month the organisation, which is intimately linked to the nationalist party, was forced to repay £128,000 of public money, granted to it by the Scottish Executive. Alec observes that the SIF, which was formed in 2008, managed to leapfrog pre-existing Muslim cultural and religious bodies in Scotland, in order to claim large injections of taxpayers’ cash. This despite its di...

The SNP used the Megrahi affair to indulge in some distasteful nationalist posturing. Where justice is reserved the events formed a cautionary tale of the possible effects of its devolution. But how do they reflect the workings of devolution, as it currently operates, and what do they tell us about possible political dynamics, as they might develop in the immediate future? What the case illustrates most strikingly is that a Westminster government can be powerless in the face of an internal policy decision which directly impacts upon its interests on the international stage. It has been alleged, as I intimate below, that the Scottish Justice Minister’s determination was convenient for the national government and consistent with its foreign policy objectives. It has even been suggested that pressure was brought to bear on the SNP administration, or that a deal was struck. It is a plausible point of view, derived by seductive reasoning, but it does not negate the hard fact that a re...

There are a series of problematic value judgements which the facts of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s release raise. Is it right to show mercy to a dying man, even if he has perpetrated a heinous crime? If there is a doubt about the safety of his conviction, does it justify his case being treated differently? How far should the hurt which victims have experienced be taken into account where mercy can be shown, or denied? These are difficult questions, involving slippery moral concepts which will be endlessly debated. Lengthy works of philosophy, or novels, are suitable media to consider such material carefully (although Hernandez is one of many having a go on blogs and columns). Rather than encroach on the territory outlined above, I propose to discuss (briefly) two issues (which I will divide between two posts) arising from the decision (and its announcement), which are, I suppose, tangential to the points I made about the SNP’s style of presentation, last night. Firstly, from a purely...