Saturday, 5 September 2009

Brown's evasiveness over Lockerbie raises the question: 

Prime Ministers fall into three categories. There are the truly exceptional individuals with the courage and the indomitable will to shape history. 

Margaret Thatcher and Sir Winston Churchill are the two most recent examples.

Then there are the middle-of-the-road. These perform to the best of their ability, but get driven hither and thither by events - leaving little of worth as a legacy. Most prime ministers fit into this undistinguished - though not dishonourable - category.

Finally, there are the utter incompetents, of whom there were only two in the entire 20th century. 

One was poor Anthony Eden, who led Britain into the debacle of the Suez invasion in 1956. The other was Neville Chamberlain, the architect of the doomed policy of appeasement, who was manifestly not up to the job when World War II broke out 70 years ago this week.

The once promising name of Gordon Brown can now be added to this pitiful third category. 

The dire events of the past few weeks have proven what many were already coming to suspect: he is simply not up to the job.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1211332/PETER-OBORNE-Browns-evasiveness-Lockerbie-raises-question-Can-Election.html#ixzz0QDFCY0WX

As a man he is suspicious, mean-minded and conspiratorial. He is evasive, calculating and - despite writing several books about courage - a coward. He is darkly suspicious of his fellow men and surrounds himself with mediocrities who do not threaten him. Above all, there is no generosity of spirit.

His most pervasive personal characteristic is dishonesty. He will resort to any ruse or political stratagem rather than tell the straightforward truth. It is this instinct for duplicity which explains why the controversy over the release of the Lockerbie bomber has turned into such a crisis.

However, it is very important to understand that the problem does not lie with Gordon Brown's original decision to allow Abdelbaset Al Megrahi to be released from jail and sent home to Libya. Bear in mind that the Prime Minister had received advice from the Foreign Office that Colonel Gaddafi would offer help in the fight against terrorism if Megrahi was released.

  

More from Peter Oborne...


 

Bear in mind also that major companies, such as BP, were telling Brown that Britain would lose big commercial contracts with Libya unless a deal was done over Megrahi - meaning that thousands of jobs were at stake - as well as potentially, if the reduced terror threat was to be believed, a number of British lives.

The easy way out of this dilemma was to take the morally unambiguous decision to prevent Megrahi's release. But that would have meant risking those British jobs and losing the cooperation of the valued Libyan intelligence service in the battle against al Qaeda.

It's the sort of difficult choice that prime ministers down the ages have been forced to make as they grapple with the murky, amoral world of international diplomacy.

Gordon Brown wrestled with these issues and I believe that he acted in a genuinely patriotic way by putting Britain's prosperity and national security ahead of moral decency and integrity. 

Indeed, Tony Blair made a similar decision when he suspended the Serious Fraud Office investigation into alleged bribes offered by British Aerospace to the Saudi Royal Family in exchange for arms contracts. 

Blair knew that the price of continuing with the criminal investigation would have been the estrangement of a key international ally and the potential loss of tens of thousands of highly skilled British manufacturing jobs.

The decision he made to intervene and drop the corruption case was very uncomfortable, but I still believe it was a brave one.

And so Gordon Brown's current problem over the Lockerbie bomber's release was emphatically not his original decision to accede to Gaddafi's wishes for the Libyan mass murderer to be allowed to return home to die. Instead, it was the way he handled the controversy.

When news of Megrahi's impending release was originally leaked last month, Brown could have been upfront and honest. He could have explained publicly the dilemma he faced, pointing out the enormous benefits that have accrued to Britain in terms of foreign exchange, jobs and security cooperation.

Of course, such openness would have offended many people. There would have been an outbreak of apoplectic fury at Hampstead dinner parties; Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, would have waxed indignant.

But many decent and thoughtful people would have understood why Brown had made the decision he did. Even those who disagreed would have admired his honesty.

Sadly, however, the Prime Minister is incapable of this kind of straightforwardness. So, he hid himself away, refusing to answer questions. 

Meanwhile, he allowed his ministers to issue a series of deceitful statements saying that there was no connection between BP's lucrative Libyan contracts and the release of Megrahi.

Over the past few weeks, as could easily have been predicted, the Labour Government's account of events has been exposed as a pack of lies. We now know that a deal was done and, as a consequence, Brown looks cowardly, shifty and morally despicable. 

What's more, the rest of the world therefore sees Britain as cowardly, shifty and morally despicable. Our international standing has suddenly fallen.

It is this tragedy that explains why the Lockerbie row has introduced a disturbing new dynamic into politics.

Before the summer, Brown's personal inadequacy was well known at Westminster, but this was merely viewed as an internal Labour Party issue.

However, Brown's incompetence and moral cowardice has now become a national concern. For example, our Prime Minister has become an object of derision and contempt in the mainstream American press.

Meanwhile, Whitehall has become paralysed for lack of leadership and political direction. Vital decisions - such as over the future of the energy industry and the tough public spending cuts needed to avert national bankruptcy - have been put on hold.

More important still, Brown has sat on the fence over whether to commit more troops to Afghanistan, where British soldiers are being killed almost daily. There is still no clear strategy, as his dire speech yesterday showed all too plainly.

Last summer, the question of Brown's survival into the General Election was couched in terms of the future of the Labour Party, namely whether another leader such as Alan Johnson would save the party from electoral wipe-out.

But the issue is much wider now and centres on whether the country can afford yet more of Gordon Brown's weakness, dithering, dishonesty and evasion.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1211332/PETER-OBORNE-Browns-evasiveness-Lockerbie-raises-question-Can-Election.html#ixzz0QDF7faOe

Bear in mind that a General Election need not be held until June 3 next year at the latest - so that's another nine months of Brown in No 10 at a time of economic and international crisis.

I am told that Tony Blair, who knows Gordon Brown's character better than most, privately believes that his successor may step down of his own accord once he realises he faces certain defeat at the election.

Some of Blair's allies (such as his former Press Secretary Alastair Campbell, who came to Brown's aid when he faced a crisis of confidence last year) now appear to have withdrawn their support. So it is still far from certain that Brown will last in office until the General Election.

Seventy years ago, the Conservative backbencher Leo Amery stood up during a Commons debate and launched a devastating attack on the then prime minister Neville Chamberlain.

Quoting Oliver Cromwell, he said: 'You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!' 

Chamberlain was out within days. It is time Gordon Brown, too, was cut adrift.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1211332/PETER-OBORNE-Browns-evasiveness-Lockerbie-raises-question-Can-Election.html#ixzz0QDF0aZKo

The voters' chance to tell Bercow to hoof it

Last summer, in the wake of the biggest corruption scandal in the 600-year history of the House of Commons, Labour and LibDem MPs scandalously conspired to elect John Bercow (one of those most shamefully embroiled in the expenses scandal) as the new Speaker.

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, believes that MPs 'broke the trust' of the British people in choosing Bercow and has now decided to stand against him at the next parliamentary election.

Although UKIP (though not, so far as I know, Farage personally) has been involved in more than its fair share of corruption scandals, the voters in Bercow's Buckingham seat have been granted a perfect opportunity to deliver a public verdict on the greed and selfishness of MPs. I hope they take it.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1211332/PETER-OBORNE-Browns-evasiveness-Lockerbie-raises-question-Can-Election.html#ixzz0QDEszIOd

Posted by Britannia Radio at 07:52