Megrahi for oil and for PR...and Mandelson definately wasn't involved!

The decision to release Megrahi was probably the right decision at law. It should also be remembered that the only reason we had him in the first place was because of a dodgy deal brokered between Blair and Gadaffi. Megrahi's family was paid very well at the time and I was never personally convinced that a guilty man was handed over.

In my view this decision was definitely made for political reasons. Any situation in which Mandelson claims to be offended and cries ridicule at the very suggestion that something dodgy has gone on behind closed doors usually points to the fact that it has.

One thing that should be remembered as the US sits on the end of the British bed and begins to dress itself is that we are probably going to have to make some other friends with oil quickly if we are to have any hope of not plunging further into economic doom and dispair.

If we were to choose our friends based on oil and in light of the respective death toll and humanitarian consequences of Lockerbie in comparison to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, it seems a bit academic as to who the choice would be. However we are also to be judged in the latter and perhaps in releasing this man, guilty or not in the eyes of god, we may inadvertently be on the road to improving our image in the eyes of Islam which in some places does appear to have rather a lot of oil and money laying about.

David Cameron writes to Gordon Brown on al-Megrahi release

David Cameron has written to Gordon Brown asking him to make clear his own view on the decision by the Scottish Justice Secretary to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

In the letter David Cameron said:

Dear Prime Minister,

The decision by the Scottish Justice Secretary to release Mr al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds has been widely condemned, including by President Obama.

As I said yesterday, I believe that the decision to release Megrahi was wrong. He was convicted of murdering 270 people, and I do not believe he deserved to be released on compassionate grounds, or returned to Libya.

The scenes of him receiving a rapturous welcome at Tripoli airport on his return will have distressed many people. I note that Colonel Gaddafi's son has now publicly thanked not just the Scottish authorities but the British Government for its stance, raising questions about the British Government's role.

You have not commented on the decision since it was announced yesterday. This morning your Foreign Secretary refused several requests to say what he thought of the Scottish Justice Secretary's decision.

The fact that the decision to release was taken by the Scottish Justice Secretary does not preclude you, as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from now expressing your opinion on a subject that is of great public concern, and which affects Britain's international reputation and our relations with our allies.

It is curious that while others have commented, Britain's own Prime Minister has not.

I hope you will now take the opportunity to do so.

We are entitled to know what you and your Ministers have said to the Libyan authorities on this matter, and to the Scottish Justice Secretary.

Above all, I believe that the public are entitled to know what you think of the decision to release Megrahi, and whether you consider it was right or wrong.

I hope you will now take the opportunity to make your own view clear.

David Cameron.