Gordon Brown, Tories, and Climate

Gordon Brown denied "double dealing" over the Lockerbie row after it emerged that he had privately backed the bomber's release. Prime Minister insisted the final decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi had been taken by the Scottish Government, and UK ministers had not sought to influence it.

"There was no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double dealing, no deal on oil, no attempt to instruct Scottish ministers, no private assurances by me to Colonel Gaddafi," Mr Brown told an audience in Birmingham.

But Mr Brown stopped short of confirming explicitly that he had favoured releasing Al Megrahi from prison before his death. The decision to free Al Megrahi, eight years into a life sentence, was made by Kenny macAskill, the Scottish Justice Minister, on compassionate grounds because he has terminal cancer. Mr Brown defended his refusal to voice his opinion publicly saying he had "minimised" the pain for Lockerbie families and he was quick to describe the scenes accompanying the bomber's return to Libya as "despicable".

It has taken Mr Brown 13 days to issue this statement, which is still ambiguous after all that time. Of course, we must remember that he gave up a few minutes of his precious holiday time to send congratulations to the England cricket team on their momentous achievement in regaining the Ashes.

Talking of ashes, that might be very well what is left of his Party at the next general Election, if the latest YouGov survey is anything to go by. It shows the Tories on 42%, with Labour trailing at 28%. Translated into seats, this would give the Conservatives a 96 seats majority.

While the UK ponders over those matters, it’s nice to know that scientists at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney, Australia, are concerned about serious global topics as well. They have proposed that we should have six seasons instead of the current four to better describe the climate. They have suggested adding “sprinter” for an early spring, and “sprummer” for the period between spring and summer. Methinks that “springer” might be better for the first one, and “scunner”, that good old Scots word, for the second, given the amount of rain and wind that we’ve had in the past few months. It all sounds like a complete bummer to me.