the RESPECT party

ALTHOUGH I have never met Colonel Gaddafi or any of his Soprano-style family, it's amazing the number of people who think I have. Once a Celtic fan described me as the "Tripoli Shamrock" at a time when I had never actually set foot in Libya.

Last week at a breakfast in Dubai, an Englishman munching his halal sausages said: "Your mate's getting a hard time in Libya isn't he?" - though YouTube is groaning with films of me denouncing Gaddafi over many years.

On my radio show last Friday, a caller - who supports me - phoned in to ask if I was embarrassed to have been pictured shaking hands with the madman.

Even on air, when I told him I had appeared in no such photo, he couldn't quite believe it.

Of course he could have been getting his Arab dictators mixed up - or worse - confused me with Tony Blair.

The heroic protesters who have become the latest revolutionaries to destroy an Arab dictatorship should all by rights have been multi-millionaires.

Their country only has the same population as Scotland, possesses an ocean of oil, yet they suffer mass unemployment and a public realm in which the shabby is the norm, with neither a decent health service or proper education.

Just off the main highway, streets have no lights and the roads have potholes as bad as the south side of Glasgow.

Come to think of it, Scotland and Libya have more in common than you'd think.

Like being linked forever with the Lockerbie bombing and the subsequent trial, imprisonment and release of Greenock jail's most famous inmate.

According to a man who was in Gaddafi's cabinet until a few days ago, the Libyan dictator did indeed order the bringing down of the PanAm airliner over Scotland.

We should take with a pinch of salt anything which comes from such rats so recently abandoning the sinking Gaddafi ship - but, of course, the truth on this too will out.

I look forward to seeing his evidence. But I won't believe it until I see it.

Mr Blair - at least through one of his many employers, JP Morgan, the banking buccaneers, or pirates if you prefer - really has done the business with the tyranny.

According to Gaddafi junior, the Colonel's son Saif, "Tony" is a "very, very, very close friend, brother and advisor" to "the Leader" and has visited Libya "many, many, many" times to advise him on good causes into which to put his money.
We'll soon see what those good causes were. Peter Mandelson, too, is a close pal of the Gaddafis, frequenting the same cocktail party circuit - a glittering highlight of which was that soiree aboard a Russian oligarch's yacht off the coast of Corfu to celebrate the birthday of the daughter of Rupert Murdoch.
Amongst other "brothers" present that night were the Chancellor Gideon Osborne, and the rich as Croesus banker Nathaniel Rothschild.
So, you can see young Saif has no prejudices of any kind.

Just bad taste.