Lesley Riddoch

On the Bike - 2009

In the summer of 2006, Lesley Riddoch cycled the Outer Hebrides from Barra to the Butt. She recorded the whole adventure and it was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 13 half hour parts. It was full of voices, events and the craic that makes hebridean life so vibrant. She wrote a book. Lesley recently returned to the Outer Hebrides to write another book and was surprised by the number of people who wanted to hear the original programmes again. So from September 9th, the whole series will be repeated week by week in 13 parts here as a podcast you can listen to or download.

Scotland's Global Impact Conference - October 22-24

As reported in the Press and Journal, Lesley will be chairing this important conference, opened by the First Minister, Alex Salmond as a part of the Highlands Homecoming festival.

All eyes on all MSPs in Megrahi Debate

Today’s Holyrood debate on Megrahi’s release should be a pivotal moment for Scotland. It should allow us to hear MSPs at their most thoughtful and forceful as they tackle a decision with moral, political, economic and social consequences.

It should contain argument, eloquence, feeling and logic. It should contain surprises as MSPs from all sides buck “party lines” to express their own individually held beliefs. It should depart from the same high point reached in the near ubiquitous public debate on Megrahi and MacAskill over recent days. It should understand that words like compassion, forgiveness have flown down from Scotland’s pulpits to be applied, argued over and reconsidered by people of all religions and none.

It should be conducted in the same robust but reasoned way Holyrood’s Iraq debate was conducted 6 years ago. And perform the same function – allowing Scots to digest, understand and accept a verdict some still completely oppose.

Today should witness a great leap forward in the maturing of Scottish democracy.

But in all probability, it won’t. And that’s a tragically wasted opportunity.

Against all the odds an act of world leadership occurred last week in Scotland – and quite evidently no-one quite remembers when that last happened.

Shielding voters from the real world with false assurances about our collective clout, credit-worthiness, competitiveness, health and happiness UK politicians have treated the public like teething babies, disturbed by anything tougher to digest than a Farleys rusk. We’ve been so cushioned from complex realities that a tough, important, reasoned argument actually sounds strange. British domestic and foreign policy has been second-guessing Daily Mail editorials so long, it’s unsettling to witness leadership.

But that’s what happened.

Whether you agree or disagree with Kenny MacAskill’s decision, an act of leadership occurred. The ball was passed to a position slightly ahead of the Scottish public, not to our feet -- as if we might be capable of finally moving from fixed positions, engrained attitudes towards right and wrong, certainties about us and them – all the rigid thinking that has characterised a judgemental society going nowhere fast.

And the move has caught almost everyone wrong-footed.

The result has been synthetic fury. Headlines full of it.

The Mirror reported fury over Colonel Gaddafi dragging the Queen, Prince Andrew and Gordon Brown into the row over the release of the Lockerbie bomber after the Libyan leader thanked them for "encouraging" the Scottish government to free terminally ill Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi.

This is not fury-making but laughable. Who amongst Mirror readers believes the Queen or Prince Andrew intervened? So where is the fury? Not in the Mirror itself. Its own editorial observes, “Yesterday's humane ruling was justice tempered by compassion, a decision proving we as a civilised society are superior to the terrorists.”

Is there fury that Gordon Brown cannot control the opinions and actions of another world leader? Fury that Scottish flags can be bought and waved by Libyans? What kind of infantile fury is this – this behaviour is beyond our control.

Gaddafi may be cunningly mixing it, clumsily grateful or may believe the British state works like his one (the Head of State decides everything.) None of these possibilities justify fury.

Clearly it will be almost impossible for opposition politicians to create light not heat in today’s debate, which will therefore fall very far short of the intelligent, detailed conversations I think Scots have been having with one another all weekend.

After a Book Festival event I spoke with a Swedish member of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee who lost his best friend in the Pan Am 103 bombing. He had read the entire transcript of MacAskill’s 25 minute statement before forming the opinion that compassionate release was probably the best thing in the circumstances. There was no triumph, relief or fury in his words. Just sadness.

A sixteen year old asked if the Americans have a provision for compassionate release because their reaction to the release seems so completely different from ours. According to American criminal law professor Douglas Berman there is, but the application of federal statute 18 USC § 3582(c) is “notoriously stingy.”

He observes that “the reactions of the White House to Scotland's decision spotlights that the concept of compassionate release is still not seriously embraced in the United States.” The vitriolic letter this weekend from the director of the FBI, Robert Mueller bears this out.

Quite simply Kenny MacAskill’s Lockerbie decision was a case of the tail wagging the dog and this has upset an international pecking order of status, hegemony, power and control. Scotland ignored America. Libya ignored Gordon Brown. The small country and the “guilty” country acted like the superpowers they are not and American public opinion has been outraged.

It would have been one thing to ignore George W – though indeed Tony Blair jumped to his bidding – but now that America has taken the courageous step of electing a progressive, black, reforming, plain speaking, Euro-friendly leader, how come Obama is being ignored?

It must be hard for Americans to realise their particular world view ends at their borders, no matter how appealing their advocate or threatening their Defence Secretary.

Surely this life lesson is long overdue?

Scotland in the shape of Kenny MacAskill begged to differ with the USA over the importance of compassion -- a legal concept apparently common to both.

The hurt, clout and culture of the American relatives has neither been ignored nor placed centre stage.

And in Scotland, an opportunity’s been created to ditch sterile, histrionic debate into something meaningful. Can our politicians walk away from the debris of the old politics and astonish us with their insights and wisdom?

The Scottish public will be listening hard to everyone today. Not just the SNP.

Megrahi release is an independent step

It's not surprising that Scotland's Kenny MacAskill held his nerve and released the Lockerbie bomber, despite the political stakes.

Click here to read the rest of Lesley's article in the Guardian's 'Comment is free'.

Back in the Scottish Parliament again

In one of the 'must see' events of the Festival of Politics, Lesley will be chairing the Future Scotland debate featuring Germaine Greer, Deyan Sudjic and Petter Clegg today in the Debating Chamber at Holyrood. The event promises daytime fireworks as Ms Greer has some challenging opinions.

Fate of Lockerbie bomber is not the key issue

Kenny McAskill now faces an almost impossible situation over the man convicted for the Lockerbie bombing in 2001.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi wants early release from his 27 year sentence on compassionate grounds -- he’s expected to die within three months of prostate cancer. Such compassion has recently been shown to Ronnie Biggs and in Scotland, of the 30 such requests made since 2000, only seven have been denied. Even though there’s every prospect he will arrive in Libya like a returning hero, that must have nothing to do with the medical and legal decision here.

It's drink, not a lack of cash, that fuels our apathy

What’s it like to live in a deeply unadventurous country? We should know.

According to the National Lottery, almost half the British population has not tried a new activity for a year or longer and a further fifth can’t remember what that new activity was or when it occurred. The reason most often quoted as holding people back from new experiences was lack of money.

The Gathering Debate continues

Anne Keenan writing to the Scotsman, continues the ongoing debate about the Gathering and 'Aislings' Children' in particular.

This website is changing

With the end of Riddoch Questions on BBC Radio Scotland, it was the right time to re-evaluate what was happening on this web site. There are a number of changes, although all 100  Riddoch Questions programmes will remain available on iTunes, there will be more material refletcing Lesley's current projects. These will gradually come onstream, the first will be some material about the book Lesley is writing about 'the Nordics'. There will be podcasts, broadcasts and more journalism. If lesleyriddoch.com is the formal side of Lesley; then her blog Another Side of Lesley Riddoch is the more informal side of her life where she documents, in her own style, the challenges of being a feisty woman in and about Scotland and beyond. Please bookmark, subscribe or RSS, either or both sites. Your comments are welcome as ever.

Road to the isles is clogged with campervans

WHEN are tourists not tourists? When they are "binfillers" on the Western Isles. The unflattering name has been coined to describe the influx of campervans, lured by the supposed BBQ summer, weak pound, "relaxed" attitude to wild camping and, of course, cheap ferry fares.

Since last October, the Scottish Government's Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) has been operating in the Outer Hebrides, along with Coll and Tiree, in a 30-month pilot scheme, bringing fare reductions of about 40 per cent. To read more - click here.