|
By Gemma Brosnan
THE Brits in general have a pretty shocking reputation abroad. Delightful, insightful TV programmes such as ‘Brits Abroad’ and ‘Ibiza Uncovered’ show the lower end of what the average foreign waiter is forced to endure, while the wealthier Brits are wise enough to shy away from the cameras, but highlight their ignorance and disrespect in a similarly vile fashion, just with a cloak of smarter clothes, a dash of colonial arrogance and an ostentatious attitude to tipping to ensure they are never thrown out. But it’s not the British public hammering our own reputation into the ground this time.
It’s Gordon Brown who has given the rest of the world grounds to believe that today's British are a cowardly, unprincipled, amoral and spineless bunch because he is more concerned with keeping lovely Libya sweet than protecting his own people or improving our heavily tarnished international reputation.
As unemployment reaches all time highs and Brown continues to ensure we are the last country to muster up the economic strength required to drag ourselves out of the murky depths of the bleakest recession of our times, he seems hell-bent on destroying what’s left of our fragile reputation by showing mercy to the merciless and simultaneously disrespecting the memory and family of every individual cruelly wiped out by a twisted mass murderer who is now back on home turf being treated like a cross between untouchable, precious royalty and the ultimate warrior.
It was Winston Churchill who asked in the aftermath of Pearl Harbour ‘What kind of people do they think we are?’ and there is little sympathy for Brown’s stupidity which will force him to bear the brunt of those wanting the answer to that much unwanted question.
Brown may not have been the man who signed the piece of paper ensuring Megrahi’s five star flight home, but his refusal to associate himself at all is both insulting and irritating.
He calls the Scottish decision ‘quasi-judicial’ and therefore one he cannot comment on, but due to the luxury of correspondence between Libya and Bill Rammell, a former Foreign Office minister, it is now open knowledge that neither Brown or Miliband wanted Megrahi to die in a Scottish jail.
Miliband finally admits it, but Brown continues to hide behind empty words claiming ‘no cover-up, no conspiracy, no deals’. Yeah, right.
The man who did make the decision to release the Lockerbie Bomber claims it was an act of compassion, required by ‘due process’.
How on earth anyone has managed to convince themselves that this man deserves an ounce of compassion is beyond comprehension. It takes a monster to commit a crime as monstrous as the bombing of PanAm 103. It was a crime against humanity, a hideously brutal terrorist assault on hundreds of innocent people and Megrahi has every right to be punished in jail until his last breathe.
For perpetrators of such crimes there can be no forgiveness: there is no time bar on their prosecution and no provision for their early release. It is part of their punishment that they shall die under lock and key because this is the highest punishment available.
Brown may now be in the unusual position of being able to call himself Libya’s best friend, and must have watched the footage of the country's 40th anniversary celebration of the coup that brought Muammar Gaddafi to power with bemused, distorted pride, as they not only managed to beam out video footage of Megrahi’s release onto the big screen for the nation, but flew in a team of Scottish pipers from New Zealand as an extra nail into the 259 coffins representing every Lockerbie victim. With Nick Clegg and David Cameron lapping it up and Barack Obama already on attack, even Brown must be seriously questioning his deluded sense of loyalty and wondering whether it was all really worth it, not only because of the backlash at home, but with the additional prospect of a serious transatlantic dispute on the horizon, just in time for the G20 meeting in less than three weeks time. Hosted by Obama. Let’s hope he has more than empty words ready for the questions at that table.
|
