LOCKERBIE PMQs FOR DAVID CAMERON

by Patrick Haseldine

Ed Miliband - photograph of a confident Leader of the Opposition

Every Wednesday, when the UK Parliament is sitting, the Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband is allocated six Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) to put to David Cameron, who is expected to answer truthfully. The Prime Minister is not given advance notice of these PMQs but can generally avoid giving a straight answer without entailing political consequences for himself or his government. For David Cameron, the subject of Lockerbie could prove to be an exception to the PMQ rule and cause his resignation.

Ed Miliband just has to ‘ask’ David Cameron these six PMQs related to Lockerbie (the answers might be interesting but essentially do not matter – Hansard and the resultant publicity should deliver the coup de grâce to Mr Cameron’s premiership):

photograph of a quizzical Prime Minister

PMQ1. Can the Prime Minister confirm that he visited apartheid South Africa just three months after the 21 December 1988 Lockerbie disaster which killed United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson?

PMQ2. Does the Prime Minister share his ennobled Conservative predecessor’s view of the Rössing Uranium Mine in Namibia, which Baroness Thatcher visited in March 1989 and which she said made her “proud to be British”?

PMQ3. Is the Prime Minister aware that the Rössing Uranium Mine is owned jointly by the Rio Tinto Group and the Iranian Government, and in 1989 was supplying Iran with uranium in contravention of the UN law which prohibited the exploitation of Namibia’s natural resources?

PMQ4. Is the Prime Minister aware that UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, had warned prior to his death at Lockerbie that he intended to prosecute Iran and apartheid South Africa for illegally exploiting Namibia’s uranium and diamond gemstones?

PMQ5. Can the Prime Minister confirm that Bernt Carlsson was targeted on Pan Am Flight 103 of 21 December 1988 by Iran and by apartheid South Africa, and therefore that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, Muammar Gaddafi and Libya were wrongly accused of the Lockerbie bombing?

PMQ6. Will the Prime Minister now congratulate Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill for releasing the wrongly convicted “Lockerbie bomber”, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who would otherwise have died in jail?

References:

1. Prime Minister’s Questions

2. Cameron’s freebie to apartheid South Africa

3. Lockerbie: Cameron’s Nuclear Secret

4. Bernt Carlsson and ‘The Case of the Disappearing Diamonds’

5. Lockerbie: Ayatollah’s Vengeance Exacted by Botha’s Regime

6. David Cameron: ‘Lockerbie bomber should have died in jail’

7. Seven Questions for FBI Lockerbie Task Force Chief Richard Marquise

8. Bribery in Securing Al-Megrahi’s Conviction

9. ‘Lockerbie Conspiracy’ by Thatcher and Reagan

10. Namibia’s Yellowcake Road to Lockerbie