These being items of topical, local and thematic interest…
After all those sneering, leering news reports and salacious commentary pieces we’re told that Gareth Williams wasn’t killed as part of a “kinky sex liason“. Well, if that’s correct it’s no surprise: it always sounded unlikely. One hopes that the press will learn a lesson before dribbling on the scenes of future killings but, of course, they won’t.
So, what’s the new idea? Well, the Police are now claimed to believe that Williams might have died “while taking part in a bizarre experiment for an art project“. Right. The theory is that he climbed into a bag and zipped and locked it shut as part of research for a course entitled “Fashion Design For Beginners“. His tutor is not amused…
The police did come to see me. The idea that his death and his work on the course was linked is a crazy idea that the police dreamed up. They said it might relate to it but I can’t see how it relates at all.
To be frank, nor can I. For all that there was scant evidence that Williams was into bondage an enthusiast for sado-masochism would at least have a clear motive for getting in the bloody bag. Meanwhile the Police have delayed their inquest. One fondly hopes that this is really due to “new twist[s]” they’re investigating and not, say, the need to dream up yet another story.
Those of you who’ve followed my pieces on Lockerbie may not be too surprised to hear that there’s been no real progress. In a culture of frenetic, fevered news updates one might imagine that important things can be distinguished by how much airtime and column space they’re given. This is a bit like thinking you can winkle out the deepest insecurities of a person as they’ll always talk about them.
Anyway, the Scottish government first claimed they didn’t have the power to hold an inquiry into Megrahi’s conviction. Now, as hundreds of people and the Scot’s Petitions Committee echo Justice for Megrahi‘s call they’ve admitted that they do have the power to – just not enough for it to be effective. And besides, they add, perhaps thinking if no one’s called their bluff so far they’ll get away with anything, “the Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of Mr Al-Megrahi“.
Alas, as Jim Swire and Robert Forrester note in their reply, not only was the verdict based on meager and largely discredited evidence, it was disputed by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. And if the SCCRC could reach that bold conclusion with the power it wields why can’t the Scottish government? It’s akin to a hulking bodybuilder moaning that he can’t possibly lift a weight while his younger brother gaily juggles with it in the background. Even if the verdict was sincere this is grubby stuff.
It’s sweet how papers think they’re bastions of dissent. Via Medialens I see The Guardian has claimed to have “unmasked” supposedly repentant yet still money-grubbing police mole Mark Kennedy. Er, sorry guys but Indymedia pipped you to the post by a mere ten weeks. Tsh, you go for a coffee and some rascal scoops you right under your nose. Damn parasitical bloggers.
January 16, 2011 at 2:46 am
Touching the Hol-blo body–not-so- recommended.
Like most of the CT wheezebuckets (and paraphrasing Zappa)–he coulda made mo’ money as a butcher.
scan his recent brainfarts on Fitzgerald –really I doubt he can even offer a coherent summary of the plot.
January 16, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Now that somebody is having the courage to say all the evidence pointing to Mr Magrahi is hopelessly faked, why not put together that we know about and can trust, and start from there.
Anybody doing this will immediately come to the conclusion that the destruction of IR655 must be behind it.
Ignore claims by the US that it was only an accident. It’s what Iran thought about it that mattered. They wanted revenge and got it Pan Am 103.
Indeed I have come to the conclusion that IR655 was targetted by the Vincennes, because the CIA erroneously believed or were led to believe that the head of what Mr Marquise calls Iranian terror was on board.
January 16, 2011 at 3:37 pm
[Good to see that the county's secrets are being looked after by GCHQ employees who don't leave themselves vulnerable to blackmail etc]
[I come here via Prof Black's blog - btw]
Despite the heavy questioning that we’ve come to expect on Desert Island Discs, today Kirsty (not so) Young (anymore) could not get Alex Salmond to admit releasing Al Megrahi was a bad idea. I had to laugh she had the cheek to ask that…as if he would wait and suddenly choose the most innocuous program ever devised as a time to make a revelatory statement such as he made a mistake about the release.
Blogiston
January 16, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Charles,
I can’t say I’ve really dug into alternative theories. Still, I should probably interrogate their epistemic value. Or test the waters, to put it less pretentiously.
Blogiston,
I can hear it now:
Young: Oh, come on Mr Salmond, you must regret it?
Salmond: *Clears throat* Next, Kirsty, I’d choose Madness’s Shut Up…
January 18, 2011 at 5:05 am
Oh, silly me, I thought the duty of a Coroner was to establish who was in the bag (pretty certain) and the cause of death. I would imagine that toxicology and pathology would have been fairly complete after nearly FIVE MONTHS and there is no date set in the future for an inquest into Gareth Williams’s death. There are obviously inconvenient results coming back from the scientific tests and the wish is to kick it into the long grass. An Inquiry is another means to deal with awkward events which would rock the establishment if the truth were to be discovered. Nothing there to trouble the Guardian scribes, then.
January 19, 2011 at 2:25 am
I’ll be interested to hear how the body was positioned. That sounds sickeningly morbid but if it was really with his “arms and legs contorted behind him” there’s no way he clambered in of his own volition.
February 15, 2011 at 2:15 pm
[...] The increasingly bizarre and evermore suspect attempts to make us feel his private life was strange enough to lead to ruin don’t inspire faith. Nor does the secret service’s meddling in [...]
June 20, 2011 at 3:27 pm
[...] the months after his death the papers were stuffed with dubious and downright ludicrous suggestions of his alleged interest in fetishism, and the likelihood of his dying as part of a sex [...]