Saudi Arabia runs a brutal secret religious police force known as the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
So in theory, it should be pleased with today’s High Court judgment that Blair acted unlawfully when, in 2006, he ordered the Serious Fraud Office to scrap a probe into BAE Systems’ dealings with the totalitarian monarchy; best business practice has been upheld in a manner that will hopefully act as a deterrent to further New Labour moral laxity.
Lord Justice Moses even hinted that Lord Goldsmith’s blatantly mendacious and self-serving invocation of the national interest in this affair amounted to interference with the course of justice.
If you live on a council estate in Dewsbury and are the mother of seven kids by five fathers, you can expect to find yourself in the dock for such misdemeanours. Unfortunately, the smart money is not on the erstwhile attorney general having to do the same.
The whole story of how BAE ended up as the chief supplier of lethal weaponry to what is unquestionably the planet’s most repressive regime speaks volumes about how the international arms trade works.
The Saudis would rather be buying American kit. But while Washington wants to keep the House of Saud onside – both because it is both the world’s number one oil supplier and because it is a key military ally – the impact of the Israel lobby makes it impossible for the government to ally US companies to oblige. BAE Systems gets the gig by default.
It is a lucrative contract, especially in terms of follow-up technical support. The Saudis are incapable of maintaining advanced weapons systems, and have to import the know-how.
The al Yamamah contract has been mired in corruption since its inception in the 1980s. New Labour are not the first government to simply shut up and play ball.
As long ago as 1989, the National Audit Office launched an inquiry into bribery allegations surrounding the deal. It took three years. So what was the outcome, you ask? We still don't know.
In March 1992, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee decided not to publish the NAO's findings. The chairman, Labour MP Robert Sheldon, refused even to disclose the report to committee members, assuring them that there was 'no evidence of fraud or corruption'.
Some Labour MPs expressed 'misgivings'. Martin O'Neill - then Labour's defence spokesman - pledged that a future Labour government would re-open the inquiry. But 11 years after Labour returned to office, that still hasn't happened.
In October 1994, Labour MP Tam Dalyell produced two documents - a US intelligence report and an internal British Aircraft Corporation memo - which claimed that Mark Thatcher, the son of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, received commission payments worth as much as £12m from al Yamamah.
But the PAC declined to investigate the matter, deeming it outside its remit, which is restricted to issues concerning taxpayers' money. The claims have never been refuted. And in the intervening years, we have certainly learned much about the ethical standards of the son of our former prime minister.
In 2005, Mark Thatcher was forced to leave South Africa after pleading guilty to involvement in a plot to stage a coup in Equatorial Guinea. He was fined $500,000 and given a four-year suspended sentence.
The biggest problem with today’s High Court ruling is that it is not retrospective. It is no good preaching transparency to developing countries while keeping corruption under wraps at home.
Posted at 13:41, 10 April 2008