Libyan release

THE furore manufactured about Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is as shameful as it is predictable (“Lockerbie bomber should go back to jail”, 23 August).

It is a measure of the lack of abilities and lack of political judgment of those who seek to use his release against the Scottish Government that we are here again, with the same failed campaign with its steadily diminishing effect – if, in fact, it ever had any significant effect at all.

Most responsible Scottish opinion has expressed support for his release but even those who were unsure do understand that it was done in full accord with proper procedure and in good faith and that there was no apparent political element to the decision.

Consequently, the feigned outrage by political enemies of the Scottish Government, and the obedient press chorus which parrots it, increasingly irritates and the re-entry to the fray of under-pressure and under-informed US senators such as Mitt Romney, seeking to make political capital, is offensive.

What I find particularly distasteful, however, is the behaviour of the Labour party in Scotland over this issue.

Every time Labour aligns itself with right-wing and reactionary elements and disgraces itself on this and other issues more of Labour’s intelligent and principled Scottish support walks away from it.

David McEwan Hill

Dalinlongart

Sandbank

Argyll