Al Megrahi: How the government should deal with yet another bumpy moment

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210000/Jack-Straw-dropped-plan-include-Lockerbie-bomber-prisoner-transfer-agreement-oil-deal-Libya.html

My advice would be to ignore all the opportunistic Tory cries for a Select Committee Enquiry.

Say nothing more. No further comment. It will blow over.

"What will the Americans say and do?" some ask in souped-up despair.

If the Americans make any more trouble over this, the UK government will take this golden opportunity of withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan and Iraq in one of those hissy fits that David Milliband is now so good at doing.

We will take our troops and flounce off, that's what we'll do.

Lockerbie, Scottish nationalism and Al Megrahi

The deal was this: if they let him go he would forfeit his right to appeal. If he had decided to appeal, he would die in prison. He chose the latter because it suited him. It also suited the Scottish and British governments to let him go.

The Scots were allowed to reach their own conclusion about whether or not to let him go. If they went ahead and did precisely that, they should not be condemned for doing what they were invited to do, probably with the approval of Westminster.

There is some talk about the conviction being unsafe. If the appeal proved that it was indeed unsafe, then that would be another body blow to the British.

Two actually: one for wrongly convicting him and another for admitting to wrongly convicting him.