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

Ashish — Sun, 09 May 2010 07:24:04 +0000

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.

The Conservatives have now taken the lead, but the strong electoral support for the Liberal Democrats (which did not get converted into too many seats, but enough for them to seem like a kingmaker) will lead to some time period of jockeying for power. Gordon Brown would not want to go into opposition, since the minute he loses power, he will face huge internal opposition in the party; but is stuck by the fact that currently the Liberal Democrats would not want to support a party that has lost the elections. However, supporting the Conservatives is not so easy since the policies are widely separate, and it will be distressing for both of them if they have to bring their policies to a common ground in a number of areas.
It would seem that the possible options are:
- Conservatives come to power with the support of the Liberal Democrats – People are not really looking upon this as a feasible arrangement because of the internal pressures
- Labour forms a Government with the support of the Liberal Democrats – this will still remain a minority Government
- Conservatives get outside support from the Liberal Democrats – will work for some time, but there will be many compromises that will be required
In all these cases, there will be a fear that a new election will be required soon to resolve these issues and come up with a new Parliament with new numbers.

British Government in a bind over release of al Megrahi

Ashish — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:40:50 +0000

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:

The government was responding to reports that the British government wanted al Megrahi to be eligible for release in order to smooth the way for the British oil giant BP to win exploration rights in Libya. But Justice Minister Jack Straw acknowledged Sunday that a key element of the story was correct — that Libya had demanded al Megrahi be included in a prisoner transfer agreement, and that, after initial resistance, the UK agreed to the demand.
The Sunday Times claimed that Libya had insisted that al Megrahi be freed before it would approve an enormous contract with BP. BP announced the deal in May 2007, promising an initial investment of $900 million to explore two Libyan areas — one the size of Belgium and the other as large as Kuwait. But Libya did not approve the deal until after London dropped its objection to releasing al Megrahi, the Sunday Times alleged. Libya’s parliament approved the BP exploration deal four days after the alleged Straw letter was dated.

This controversy about whether the British Government made the deal to win a commercial agreement can be damaging, and is something that a large number of people would be willing to believe (actually, I consider that this might actually be true, even though there is no actual confirmation). Political opponents to Prime Minister Gordon Brown must be smelling blood, seeing a way to tar him with the feather of ‘terrorits-for-trade’, and given the recent political problems of Gordon Brown, it could place him in an uncomfortable position if further media research reveals more such secrets in this area.

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

British Government in a bind over release of al Megrahi