Megrahi dead

Megrahi, and the victims of the Lockerbie bombing, are probably all victims of a massive miscarriage of justice. He - probably - wasn't involved in the destruction of Flight 103, and the relatives of the victims have - probably - been misled as to the real murderers.

Still, now that Iran and Syria are officially in the bad books again, the original leads pursued after the bombing may get revisited. Handy, having an atrocity that can be pinned on whomsoever you feel the need to make evil.

British polling drivel

Labour starting to weigh in with leads of 10-14 points according to Yougov polling.

Even more interestingly, Miliband is now the least despised of the party leaders.  His figures have improved from a net negative of -46, to -23.  Not much to write home about, but over the same period, David Cameron has slumped from -7 (almost being popular) to -29.  Nick Clegg writhes in despair at a current net negative of -54, even lower than the -49 he was on in January.

Miliband's underlying trend is much worse than Cameron's - Cameron will bounce up a bit, Ed will slump a bit, but it is closing. MiIiband may not look like much of a prospect for Prime Minister, but the Tory problem is that Dave isn't either.

 Insanely, I think Clegg is the safest of the three. No-one is going to want to take his job as long as the Lib Dems are in coalition. After decimation at the election, the 6 remaining MPs can fight it out among themselves, and it will be like the 80s all over again. Paddy Ashdown would be spinning in his grave, if he was dead.

Miliband is probably safeish - though the more winnable the next election looks, the more likely someone might be inclined to plant a knife in his back, while mouthing homilies about "Ed's great job of re-building the party blah blah blah".

Cameron looks very shaky, but the eternal question remains, who the feck would you replace him with? Another pretend centrist? Nothing there to reverse the slide. A rightwing lunatic? That would probably shatter the coalition and precipitate electoral oblivion for both partners. Ken Clarke? He'd be sane enough to reverse Osbourne's demented austerity drive, popular enough to appeal to the voters, old enough not to present a serious threat to any of the younger generation's ambitions, and might just manage to pull an election victory in 2015.

For all the newly liberated citizens of England