Tie a Yellow Ribbon...

Good old Bertie Basset al Mick McGahey returned to a hero's welcome in Libya tonight. Thank goodness we live in a country where justice is tempered with mercy. He’s served his time... well, a little bit of time, anyway, and as he is dying, it is surely right for us to free him at once. Even as we speak, prayers are being offered up to St Ernest of Saunders and St Augusto of Valparaiso for his miraculous recovery.
Some may say this contrasts oddly with Jack Straw’s decision in the case of Ronnie Biggs, just lately reversing a judgment he had made only a month ago never to release him Biggs, of course, was “wholly unrepentant” about his actions, said Straw, while, by complete contrast, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi has always insisted on his innocence.
Age is a factor, too. Biggs is a mere 79, whereas the Libyan is an elderly 57. Fortunately, unlike many barbarous, uncivilised countries, Britain is free of any statute of limitations. Thus Biggs could be locked up the moment he arrived home even though his sentence would have been finished with years before, and his crime written off as being just too long ago in places like the degenerate United States. Thank heavens Britons could sleep soundly knowing that this vile old man was safely behind bars, just as they can now that Fred Basset al-Mugabe is free as a bird in Libya.
Well, those people who carp about this decision tonight should remember something important. Ronnie Biggs committed a foul, filthy and inhuman crime. He stole bags of money! He savagely parted bankers and businessmen from their loved ones. They were never to see them again.
Some of this cash was to have been destroyed by the Royal Mint, so it could have been included in Britain’s famous Back Hand Aid Programme and helped needy politicians and civil servants in their retirement. Biggs cruelly prevented this. He is an evil, evil man, and none should pity him.
On the other hand, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi never stole a penny. All he did was help remove a couple of hundred perfectly ordinary people from the surplus population. It is not as though there is any shortage of them! He did, admittedly, cost an airline company the price of a new plane, so it is right that he should have served eight years for that, but surely enough is enough.