More cringe comes creeping out of the Libyan woodwork

The ghastly, creepy letters written to Gaddafi by both Blair and Prince Charles in June 2007 have been published in today’s Times.  Unfortunately we can’t link to The Times these days, but if you are able to get a copy, it’s all there. Just make sure you are not far from a suitable bowl when you read it.

Of course Prince Charles doesn’t do such things off his own bat, and bearing in mind that Gaddafi’s coup on September 1^st 1969 ousted the ruling Senoussi royal family, HRH can’t have expected the military dictator to have been too impressed by his rank. So Blair, whose own efforts are excruciating (“My wife Cherie was pleased to meet Dr Aisha”), put him up to it. But really.  Not only did this flirtation with the master butcher of Libya, the man responsible for the most brutal act of terrorism on British soil, not only did it mean setting aside that monumental evil, alienating the friends and family of Yvonne Fletcher, and watching Blair embrace and fawn around this man in order to get onside, but Blair also dragged in the royal family.

In his letter to His Excellency (Gaddafi), Charles says “I was delighted to see that the work of the British Council, of which I am Vice Patron, is making such an important and positive contribution to teaching in Libya’s universities in partnership with your higher education authorities.”

The contract for the British Council was of course a stitch-up, and presumably too good, too sweet for any other institution but the British Council; the British Council which a few months before had used taxpayers’ money to pay the fees of these “higher education authorities” in their own school in Tripoli, and who almost certainly provided one-to-one instruction for Gaddafi’s daughter Hana also at our expense.  Charles could do well to distance himself from this dreadful organisation, and give his support to genuine enterprise and to organisations, such as our universities, with real expertise.

What, for heaven’s sake, is there to recommend the British involvement in this sordid episode? We use public money to hold up a privileged institution so that it can win further contracts for itself while playing “spot the next dictator” and brown-nosing there with the support of the PM, the heir to the throne and all Establishment players.  And all this at the expense of the taxpayer, at the expense of any pretence of meritocracy, and at the expense of the feelings of the many who suffered in Libya and worldwide at the hands of this man, and at the expense of the principles which we expect our leaders to represent. Yuck.

Comments

[pokemon]

i doubt David whether the BC had much choice in sponsoring the dictator's son for his courses, el supremo Blair would have told them to arrange for the course to take place & a suitable marking given.

Politics would have been the driver & the BC who i also have criticised in terms of it's monolithic stale attitude to Britain & what it stands for, i think i just another bystander in the murky New Labour world.

Now if you were to condemn their actions for exporting british jobs overseas or rewarding mediocre staff who retain their jobs not on merit, but on where they are living, a management structure that recruits inferior people to do their jobs & spends vast amounts of UK taxpayers money coaching them, you will be on the right track.

[Neil Robertson]

Interested to see that FCO's Christian Turner who was the Prime Minister's Private Secretary when this creepy letter from Gordon Brown to Qadaffi is concocted and who then became heavily involved in the discussions over the release of Megrahi when he became Deputy Director then Director of MENAD at the FCO has been given a GMG for contributions to British diplomacy named as the next UK High Commissioner to Kenya .....

26 September 2007; footnote 15; letter from PM to Col Qadhafi;
10 DOWNING STREET THE PRIME MINISTER
26 September 2007
Dear Colonel Qadhafi
I wanted to write to wish you a belated Ramadan Kareem, and to wish you and your family well in this holy month.
I am pleased that we continue to make progress in many areas of mutual interest. We share your close interest in Africa. Libya's constant concern to resolve the crisis in Darfur is admirable, and I am delighted that the Great Jamahiriya will host the UN/AU mediation meeting in October. I hope that our two countries will be able to work together to help alleviate poverty and disease in Africa. If the UN General Assembly elects Libya as a member of the UN Security Council, we will work in this forum to develop further our International co-operation.
I confirm that the British Government are working to fulfil all the undertakings agreed during Tony Blair‟s visit in May, in many areas such as counter terrorism, policing, justice, education, English language teaching and health.
I strongly hope that we can make rapid progress to implement the Defence Accord signed in May, when Dr Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi announced publicly that Libya would purchase the
MBDA Jernas air defence system from the UK. The Joint Communiqué refers explicitly to the early conclusion of contracts with GD(UK) and MBDA, so we look forward to that.
Confirming these two contracts is key to creating a defence industrial partnership, enabling Libya to develop and strengthen its own defence industrial base, with sustained British help
where Libya seeks, under our Accord. Both companies have submitted realistic bids and their products are second to none. I understand that you expressed your personal goodwill to the
UK with regard to both contracts when you met Tony Blair in Sirte. I hope that these contracts can be concluded soon.
Separately, I know that BP look forward to early Cabinet approval of their agreement with Libya so that they can begin many years of mutually productive investment in the
development of the Libyan economy.
The ongoing exchange of senior visits is important, helping us to strengthen our ties together. I am glad that Foreign Office Minister Dr Kim Howells had a constructive visit to Tripoli in
July and that Libya sent such a strong team to take part in the successful Wilton Park Conference on Libya/UK relations. His Royal Highness the Duke of York will visit Libya in early November. I hope that you will have the occasion to meet him.25
As I said in my introductory letter to you in July, I look forward to developing a close and productive relationship with you personally, and hope that we shall speak soon.
Yours sincerely
Gordon Brown
Colonel Mu'ammar Qadhafi

[Neil Robertson]

http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2011/DEP2011-0212.pdf More creepy letter on Libya

[Neil Robertson]

http://falklandislands.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=PressR&id=729394882 Change of High Commissioner to Kenya - how the penguins heard that the guy on the FCO Libya desk is being sent to Kenya

[David]

Well spotted, Neil. Ghastly creepy stuff - while tempering this with the knowledge that it was Brown's letter, we note that it is this sort of brown nosing which lands the CMG.