The government contradicts itself on Megrahi

John Bracewell

Thank you for writing that down, I thought I must have still been asleep or misheard it. It is the most blatant manipulation of the 'truth' but no surprise coming from Mr Balls. Wasn't Mr Brown also reported to have said 'he did not want to see Megrahi die in prison'. What is the Government coming to - Mr Darling changing Mr Brown's words on the spending cuts issue now Mr Balls contradicting his Great Leader. So many lies being told, they cannot keep up with them all themselves.

Andy in France

Ed Balls lying, whatever next!

Vulture

Mary McCarthy's observation abt Lilian Hellman also applies to this precious pair: 'Every word is a lie, including "and" and "the"'.

John

Classic New Labour position of facing both ways simultaneously. Both statements can be claimed to be correct and even consistent - the government may not have wanted Megrahi to be released but it wanted him to die in prison even less.

Ricky

How interesting and somewhat suspicious that Alan Johnson has just released a leading terrorist who had been under a Control Order......and who just happens to be a Libyan.

More murk, perhaps?

Simon Stephenson

Come on! As usual, Balls is just making half a statement - the half that makes him look good. Always, with such people, and particularly with Balls, look for the equivocation, not what has actually been said.

Of course none of them wanted to see al-Megrahi released, but what they wanted even less was for Libya to suspend trade relations with the UK. In politics, as in life generally, sometimes none of the options available are what you want, but you have to choose one, and you try to choose the one that's least bad.

But in true vote-grabbing style, Labour have so puffed themselves up as the party of moral rectitude that they find it impossible to admit that in the real world they have to make unwholesome decisions, the same as everyone else.

Sliver

This is turning into a knot of truly Gordian proportions.

What is missing is the Parmesan and the large pepper grinder?

Lord Monkington-Smythe

If Ed Balls told me that I was white, I would have to check in a mirror to make sure. It isn't just the lying, it's the way he smugly leers at you when he does it.

John Page

Nicely done, James :)

Moraymint

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive ... "

Goodness only knows why James Naughtie didn't pounce on that blatant porkie? Or have we all just got used to hearing grossly inconsistent and often totally meaningless messages from our political elite? What are they for exactly?

"Don't believe them, don't fear them and don't ask anything of them ... "

patently

Gosh. It's almost as if they are making this up as they go along!

David

Some people are never satisfied. First they moan because the Prime Minister doesn't have an Opinion. Then they fail to give him credit when he has two! Einstein said a measure of intelligence was the number of differing points of view you could hold about something at the same time. Since the US probably got a third version this Government is truly brilliant.

Philip Walker

Moraymint: the day I hear Jim Naughtie tackle a Labour politician I'll eat my hat. Humphrys, for all his other faults, would have done, but Naughtie? He famously started a question to Balls, "If we win the election", and bowled Gordon about the easiest question possible. He's the BBC's greatest gift to the Labour party.

David Lindsay

Never mind Gadaffi, small fry then as now. Never mind people, impossible to trace, who put into NORAID collecting tins. The two superpowers of the day were the really big funders of the IRA. The one that still exists did so because of the IRA's campaign against the Workers' Party. NORAID publications in the Reagan years made this perfectly clear, and seemed to think it unremarkable.

This is the context of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and the denied maintenance of continuous communication with the IRA, by Reagan's dear friend, Margaret Thatcher. Perhaps they should go after her millions, too? And Bill Clinton's, since he lifted the ban on IRA funding? And the Kennedys'?

Fergus Pickering

Oh don't worry about Naughtie. Everyone thinks he is a prick. I nearly said a Sc... prick, but I stopped myself in time.