Why on earth aren’t we more shocked by the scandal of Al Megrahi?

My favourite document in the cache released by the Cabinet Office this week is the one that starts ‘Dear Muammar’ and ends ‘yours sincerely, Gordon Brown’.

My favourite document in the cache released by the Cabinet Office this week is the one that starts ‘Dear Muammar’ and ends ‘yours sincerely, Gordon Brown’. Have you seen it? In the first sentence, our former prime minister reminds the Libyan despot that they recently met at a G8 summit. Pretty bleak, that. It is as though Brown felt close enough to the freakout dayglo bampot of the Middle East to address him by his first name, but not so close that he was confident Gaddafi would actually remember who he was.

This is the note in which Brown tells Gaddafi that Al Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, is about to be released on compassionate grounds, but that it would be nice if he, Gaddafi, didn’t make a fuss about it. This is like telling your mugger that he can have your mobile phone, but asking him not to wave it around in the street thereafter, because it might make you look a bit foolish.

I’ve been wondering — is this the most undignified missive ever sent by a serving British leader to anybody? I ask in a spirit of genuine inquiry. I’ve always regretted not studying history at university; if I had done maybe I’d know about the letter Neville Chamberlain sent to Adolf Hitler, which began, ‘Maybe you remember me from the Stalins’ fondue party. I was the tall bloke in the silly shirt.’ Or the one from Harold to William the Conqueror which said, ‘God knows the country is crying out for Norman conquest, Will old mate, but the one thing I ask is that you don’t shoot an arrow into my eye.’