Yesterday morning, thanks to the unfortunate incidence of following a twitter link, I ended up slopping my way waist deep through the human waste that passes for comment and debate on that bloke Guido's blog, wherein he shares the 'smoking gun' of Londoner John McTernan's email that 'conclusively proves, once and for all', that the Tartan Overlord considered bending over to release Megrahi, for the knock down price of airgun legislation and some compensation over the prisoners slopping out farrago. So far, so smoking gun-ish...but wait a cotton pickin' minute, why would this email suddenly become available now, why would Mr McTernan sit on an email for 18 months that could potentially bring down the Salmond pack of cards and lead us to salvation under the leadership of public schoolboys Iain Grey and Richard Baker?
Mr McTernan was the SpAd that Tony Blair sent North to sort out Jack McConnell and the Holyrood election of 2007. He insists his interpretation of a telephone conversation, he didn't listen to, is the truth.
Here's the actual email from McTernan...
This email makes for fascinating reading for a number of reasons, particularly as it gives us a glimpse into the many tentacles that Labour have throughout the UK. It offers road signs to how hand-in-glove Labour have been in UK Government and how obsessed they are with stopping the SNP. Labour, that once proud progressive party's have been left behind by the SNP who simply rediscovered the popularity of essentially social democratic policies. The past four years have seen this minority government carefully tease legislation through Parliament that will simply benefit people who live in Scotland. Socially responsible ideas like ending prescription charges, free school meals, opposing Trident, reviewing PFI, abolishing the graduate endowment, curbing right-to-buy. These are all policies that the Labour party of the past would have fought tooth and nail to introduce, but they didn't, simply because they are bound by their, increasingly questionable loyalty to Westminster...
The email is addressed to Mark Davies, Jack Straw's special adviser, now communications director for mental health charity 'Rethink'.
Mr Davies was Jack Straw's SpAd for 5 years, he's the bespectacled chap lurking behind anthrax Jack, formerly a hack with the BBC and CNN. His time at the BBC was time well spent, with more than a nod to his future career when he was the BBC's online Political editor...
Moving on, the more observant of you will notice that the email is cc'd to Scotland Office SpAd and all round Cockernee geezer, Tom Greatrex, now MP for Rutherglen. Mr Greatrex was one of the fresh cheeked Labour faces who replaced those Scottish MP's most likely to end up doing a Devine at HMP. Greatrex replaced millionaire pub landowner Baron Tommy MacAvoy as MP for Rutherglen. One of the English papers got involved in the murky underworld of Glasgow politics and exposed the fact that Baron Tommy's pub, the County Inn, in Rutherglen was in debt to the tune of £400,000 to an unnamed financial institution of the knee breaking shark variety.
Further 'revelations' showed that Baron McAvoy, liked to keep it all in the family, with his wife and son on his Westminster payroll, whilst other son was given the onerous task of running the above pub...Baron Tommy drew great succour from Labour benefactor Rutherglen Fridge magnate, Willie Haughey who takes us down another well trodden path ending up at Gakgate and Steven Purcell's downfall.
However, I digress as per norm, Baron MacAvoy is such a compelling character. Mr Greatrex is just the most stunning example of how patronage can take a young Labourite far in this democracy. Fresh from University, he starts out as researcher to Donald Dewar, two years of that, then voila propelled into a top job with the GMB, five years of that prepared him for a role as a chief officer at East Dunbartonshire Council, bing bong, couple of years pass he's and now director of Corporate affairs at NHS 24 for a couple of months before returning to his first love, working as a SpAd for a succession of Secretaries for the State of Scotland, Alexander, Browne and finally Murphy. It's impressive stuff, he's obviously a driven young feller, intent on making it to the top.
One can only wonder what sort of line, Messrs McTernan & Greatarex spun to their chumrades in the Scottish Unionist media at the time, coming a mere week after Prof Robert Black QC visited Megrahi in Greenock and declared him an innocent man.
The McTernan email is dated 9th November 2007, the following month the estimable Lucy Adams of the Herald, one of the Scottish journos who has actually done a good job on covering Megrahi, revealed that Straw still wanted to INCLUDE Megrahi in the PTA.
Ms Adams quoted an unnamed Scotland Office source, who gave a variety of excuses as to why Megrahi should be included in the PTA including the point stretching,
"The reason Mr Straw is moving ahead now is that we have Libyan prisoners in English jails who we feel should be serving their sentence back in Libya."
To the bones of the email, it's Mr McTernan's contention that Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill wanted to do a 'deal'. That deal being, let the Scottish parliament legislate on the potential banning of airguns, timebar the ECHR payments on slopping out to prisoners in the Scottish penal system and he would gladly open the doors of Greenock prison to allow Megrahi to attend the North African Ladies Beach Volleyball competition...
Yet, how can this be? As the Scottish Government within the last hour have released the documentation relating to Messrs MacAskill and Straw's conversation as enscripted by Scottish Civil Servants.
10. Mr Straw also referred to the forthcoming second round of negotiations over the Libvan 'PTA.. He acknowledged the sensitivity of the subject, given its earlier history. Mr MacAskill said that the Scottish Government had already set out its position on that. He mentioned also that he was aware of the proposals to negotiate a similar PTA with Vietnam,. and that he had no difficulty with that proposal. No actions arise ...
Mr MacAskill, said "The Scottish Government had already set out its position on that." Now in what Labour rose tinted world does Mr McTernan manage to misconstrue that as a desire to do a 'deal'.
What's obvious from the notes is that there were five people involved in this telephone conversation. MacAskill and Straw spoke, whilst Straw's PS Darren Tierney listened in as did MacAskill's. The fifth person was Ken Thomson, a lifelong Civil Servant and Director of Civil and International Justice for the Scottish Government.
According to the McTernan note this leaves one with the impression that the 'officials' that Mr McTernan heard about this alleged 'deal' from were either Mr Straw himself or his PS, unless he's suggesting that MacAskill, his PS or Ken Thomson got on the blower to let him imagine a deal for Megrahi.
It's interesting that when Blair visited Libya just a matter of a few days before handing his Premiership into the safekeeping of Gordon Brown in 2007 the Herald: commented thus,
Downing Street yesterday reiterated its claim that the memorandum of understanding had nothing to do with Megrahi. The Prime Minister's spokesman said: "We don't regard it as covering Megrahi - and we made this very clear during the talks in Libya."
Mr McTernan, dismisses, the question of legislating air rifle control to Holyrood, with the fantastically brief,
"Jacqui, is utterly opposed to movement."
Now I'm sure that Miss Jacqui's opposition to movement had nothing to do with the dear ladies husband and his pay-per-view self pleasuring moments. The statement does however, give a perfect example of the Labour hierarchy group think as of 2007, give the Scottish Governement absolutely nothing.
The last paragraph of McTernan's email is worth reproducing.
"On Somerville, our law officer (Advocate General) believes that Scottish Ministers are having a laugh. They could have ended slopping out by building private prisons but didn't have the courage. They knew they would lose and knew it would cost them And having lost, they want legislation to prevent this from happening in the future. They lost fair and square-the solution for them is not to screw up again in the future."
Now the Avocate General, McTernan is referring to here, is none other than Labour placeman, Neil Davidson QC, the man who went out of his way to stop Megrahi's lawyers accesing trial productions, sought to overturn previous appeal court decisions on the appeals scope and was instrumental in arguing the Labour governments claim for public interest immunity for legal documents which had been in the Crown's hands for more than a dozen years. Neil Davidson or rather Baron Davidson of Glen Cova as he's known these days, can be found sitting alongside his ermine chums on the Labour benches in the House of Lords...
I'm afraid that in the above paragraph, McTernan is confused, he seems to think that SNP Government Ministers are responsible for the Somerville mess, neglecting to remember that at this point the SNP had been in power at Holyrood for a mere six months and were endeavouring to mop up the mess the previous Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition had left behind. He is thinking of them and their lack of 'balls' for failing to indulge in private prisons. To me that gives a great insight to McTernan's dealings with the Labour party in Scotland, he viewed them as hapless geldings incapable of standing up for themselves in Scotland. He also fails to recognise that they had already built Kilmarnock private prison and the previous December had signed off on Addiewell private prison.
It strikes, me as ironic that McTernan sends this email to Mark Davies for the attention of Jack Straw, the same man who said this in opposition.
Doh, that'll be a broken promise I suppose.
I have to admit I'm intrigued by Mr McTernan, he's more than the 'are you a fucking horse' character Jamie, the second in command to Malcolm Tucker's Campbell from 'The Thick Of It'.
" But it is not just that cataclysmic error that has eroded our belief in the Labour Party. Its election campaign has been unremittingly negative. While we are not yet wholly convinced of the merits of independence, we are certain that Scots have the innate ability to run their own affairs if they choose to do so. That is the nature of democracy. The dire warnings from the Labour "big guns", parachuted in from Westminster, were patronising when they were not downright insulting. It is never a good idea to bully people, and some of the warnings issued by the Labour hierarchy have been not only foolish but risible - such as the suggestion that a referendum would lead somehow to the splitting up of families."
He's just the most amazing piece of work, I sort of want to poke him with a stick and see what reaction I get. Ousted from office, he washes up on the shores of 'The Scotsman' as a columnist, where there's no need to identify him as a spin master for the Labour party of long standing.
He also blogs for that bastion of Toryism, The Telegraph, although I note the Gruniad don't seem to have kept him on... he tweets porkies of enormous dimensions to his near 2,500 tweeting followers. He probably despises the SNP due to his close involvement in the Cash for Honours scandals, where his testimony led to the arrests of two other members of Blair's inner circle, his chief fundraiser Lord Levy and head of Government relations Ruth Turner, on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. But hey, let bygones be bygone. He's paid for his opinions and thoughts on policies, he has taken on the role of sage for three Labour Secretaries for the State of Scotland and two of their parties Holyrood leaders. His opinions are followed by the rank and file, he can do no wrong. Except, yesterday, when he first denied leaking the above email, then used the content to claim his imaginings were a matter of public record and truth.
After losing power in 2007 - because of a toxic mix of a stale government, a deeply unpopular party and a confident, resurgent SNP - Scottish Labour was in denial. Refusing to accept defeat, unwilling to listen to the voters, arrogant and out of touch. The nadir was the Glasgow East by-election; the second safest seat in Scotland snatched by the SNP. The political narrative became one of the inevitable triumph of the nationalist cause.
Revival, under Jim Murphy as Scottish secretary and Iain Gray as leader in the Scottish parliament, had three main elements. First, humility and open acknowledgement of the defeat the voters had imposed. Second, a willingness to embrace what the voters wanted, including working in the national interest where necessary. Third, a greater sense of Scottishness, acknowledging, in Murphy's words, that all nationalists are patriots, but not all patriots are nationalists. The results were first seen in the Glasgow North East by-election. This was followed by the three per cent swing to Labour in May last year.
Am I alone in failing to remember either Jim Murphy or Iain Gray dropping to their knees at any time in the past four years and acknowledging that Scottish Labour had laid a turd in the ballot box? Where is the evidence that they've embraced what the voters want? As to his third ingredient for success, I'll presume that was a stretch of his imagination, much like the Labour man's email that was leaked to a Tory blog to defect criticism of a lying, manipulative, hypocritical Labour party. Shame on you Mr McTernan, shame.
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