Tony Blair must be having the last laugh; he was pushed out of the Labour party by a much less flamboyant personality, Gordon Brown; and now Gordon Brown has lost the election for the Labour Party, leading to the Conservatives becoming the leading party in the elections. There have been a number of factors that have contributed to the decline of the Labour Party, with the overall economic recession being one of the biggest contributory factors, as well as the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (although it is a moot point whether the Conservative Government would have not sent armed forces to these 2 countries). Voters have voted with their feet towards the policies of the Labour Government in overcoming the recession, as well as their policies on many other areas such as Immigration (and feelings against immigration harden) when the economy starts dropping, when the impact of immigration on jobs and social security networks becomes more prominent.
However, the fractured mandate from this 2010 election is pushing Britain towards a new era (or rather a pushback to a previous era, since the last time that such a situation happened was in 1974 when a Labour Government finally took office). Britain, with this election, has moved away from the stage of a 2 party Parliament (with a majority leading party and an opposition that is also numerically strong), and moved to coalition politics where the leading party has to depend on a third party for MP’s, and where some policies of the government are dictated by coalition politics rather than being totally driven by the leading party.

continue reading "Britain’s split verdict – the Conservatives have it, but not fully"

How many of you would have heard of the name of ‘Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi’. This is the person who is behind a scandal that is shaking Britain, and is causing a huge amount of negative publicity to Gordon Brown. Al Megrahi was convicted for involvement in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, that killed 270 people. The incident happened primarily over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, and hence Al Megrahi is also known as the Lockerbie bomber. In a complex deal when he was prosecuted, he was prosecuted in a city in the Netherlands under Scottish law and sentenced to life imprisonment in a Scottish prison in 2001, a good 13 years after the crime (and this after a lot of pressure on Libya, since he was a Libyan intelligence agent). As a part of the prosecution, any role of Gaddafi’s Government was glossed over, although Libya spent around $2.7 billion in compensation to the family of the victims (259 people on the plane, including 189 Americans; and 11 people on the ground).
And now suddenly, a huge amount of controversy. The Scottish Government, that is semi-independent, release Al Megrahi on compassionate grounds since he was suffering from prostrate cancer, and his condition was supposed to be terminal, with only months left to live. The decision was supposedly taken by the Scottish Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, since under Scottish judicial customs, a person with only months to live can be released on compassionate grounds. However, it would be naive to assume that such a decision could not be taken without due counsel by the British Government because of the raw emotions involved. The United States has protested vehemently over this decision, since it sees a person who had committed mass murder being released legally, and getting a hero’s welcome when he arrived back in Libya (apparently against an understanding that the Libyans would make this a low key event). Link to article:

continue reading "British Government in a bind over release of al Megrahi"