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On the question whether Libya was ready to become a temporary member of the 15-nation UN Security Council, I would say that on balance the answer is no. I have come to that conclusion reluctantly. I would very much have preferred the answer to have been yes.

Often mentioned in the same breath as Iran, Syria and North Korea, Libya (aka The Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) was until recently a pariah state, long accused of being deeply involved in international terrorism. This has changed somewhat over the last few years. In December 2003 Libya publicly renounced its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and since then there has been, generally speaking, a thaw in Libya's relations with the West, with European and American energy companies now competing to do business there. In addition to the WMD declaration in 2003 the Libyans have made a number of careful statements in recent times, for instance accepting that Libyan officials were behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, and taking "general responsibility" for the shooting of British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher in 1984.

So has the leopard changed its spots? Is Libya now a respectable nation, ready to don the mantle of world policeman? Unfortunately, I think not yet. Not entirely.

The shadow of the past still hangs heavily over the relations between Libya and the West. I can still recall vividly the TV footage of aircraft debris from Pan Am Flight 103 scattered over what had been a peaceful Scottish town, and the image of WPC Fletcher's body lying on the ground in St. James's Square. Was Ali Mohmed al Megrahi (currently serving time in Greenock Prison in Scotland) acting alone when he downed Pan Am Flight 103 and killed 270 innocent people? Was he responsible at all? And if not, who was? Who machine-gunned Yvonne Fletcher? Who bombed a French UTA airliner (Flight 772) over Niger in 1989, killing 170? With all these cases, there has been a frustrating lack of clarity and closure. No-one to this day knows exactly who authorised, planned or carried out these crimes.

The word that comes most readily to my mind, when I think about Libya's public statements in recent years is "expediency". Libya has plentiful reserves of oil and gas. It wants to sell these to the West, and the West wants to buy them from Libya. In this light, the Libyan government attitude resembles that of a prisoner trying hard to convince a parole board that he is a reformed character and deserving of a change in status (in this case,

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