While casually looking at the news today, I had to read this sentence from Reuters twice: "Cameron insisted BP had no role in the release of the Abdel Basset al-Megrahi by Scottish authorities, which he opposed at the time, and promised his government would cooperate with any U.S. congressional hearings into the case."

David Cameron - obviously thinking hard, but it doesn't seem to help. Picture from Flickr.

BP = Bad Politics

David Cameron, the UK's freshly elected prime minister has went to the US, to ease transatlantic tensions over BP Plc. Excuse me, what transatlantic tensions? Aren't we in Europe as outraged as the Americans over the oil spill? And what has Cameron to do with the relationship between BP and Obama... I thought he stood for an ideology where the state lets private enterprise manage itself? I think what Cameron needs first of all is someone to teach him the difference between the UK and BP.

And how on earth can Cameron insist that "BP had no role in the release of the Abdel Basset al-Megrahi by Scottish authorities"? In spite of the company openly confessing (now) that they DID lobby the British government for a prisoner transfer deal with Libya. Is this supposed to mean that BP lobbied for the release of other Libyan prisoners, but not al-Megrahi?  Of course, Cameron is not too fond of the idea of an investigation into the matter. But I would be quite surprised if the lobbying was so detailed that BP named who should be released and who should not. If this is the case it makes matters even worse.

The scariest part is that BP seem to think that they have the right to lobby a government for a prisoner exchange. In a democracy no one, not the public, and even less private interests, have any power over who sits in jail. That is a question that is settled in courts and nowhere else. Imagine that your friend gets busted, and you call up some local politician and ask to have him released.  Most of us wouldn't do that, but BP admit they would. If you are a politician and a company "lobbies you" about prisoners, you laugh at them, or take them to court they try to bribe you.

It would be quite a coincidence if al-Megrahi was released by the Scottish authorities, while BP was simultanously lobbying for the release of other Libyan prisoners. But what powers does Cameron think that the Scottish parliament have? Does he really think that they would release a sentenced terrorist, during a burning war against terror, without a silent consent from London and Washington? Wake up to the world of real politics, Cameron.

Blaming the Scottish government for releasing al-Megrahi is also cowardly by Cameron. In August last year, well before BP made headlines with the gulf spill,  Times Online had an article headlined: Lockerbie bomber 'set free for oil'. It talks about leaked ministerial correspondance that "makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests" and that "Gordon Brown’s government made the decision [to pressure the Scottish parliament] after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards." Obviosly also Brown wasn't really aware about the differnce between BP and the UK.

What other British interests would Brown defend in Libya, if not teh BP off shore drilling deal that went through six weeks later? But Cameron is of the same opinon as Saif Gadaffi - the oil deal and the prisoner transfer were completely unrelated. Birds of a feather flock together.

BP = Bloody Politics

This story makes the whole "war on terror" rather disgusting. All of us have been humiliated at sensless, endless, airport securitity checks. We have accepted to have our digital lives surveyed by the state, in case someone among us is a terrorist. 19,180 people have been killed in Afghanistan and 890,501 in Iraq, in two wars that are supposedly against terrorism. Innocent people have been sent to Guantanamo, or to other prisons to be tortured and radicalised, because some cop somewhere didn't like the way they looked. But obviously BP's profits are above the war on terrorism.

Why not confess it - the war on terrorism is a very expensive scam that we all pay for with our taxes. We will never win it, because there is no Huge Threat out there. Just a number of problems that are only aggravated by military violence.

Cameron is either stupid, or lying. In any case he seems very unfit to be prime minister.