politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Ministers U-turn over the Saudi prison deal following an un

watford30 said:

Casino_Royale said:

MP_SE said:

JEO said:

Now that we're not selling the Saudis consulting services for prisons as it's immoral, can we stop selling them military equipment to bomb Yemen and bulldoze Bahrain?

Well worth a read if you can track down the relevant issues of Private Eye:

This campaign was the culmination of a long-running Private Eye investigation into corruption on a contract between the governments of the UK and Saudi Arabia.
In 2012, the team obtained details from a whistleblower of illicit payments and gifts made on a multi-billion pound contract to deliver electronic warfare equipment to the Saudi Arabian National Guard. Over the following two years the team unravelled the mechanisms of the bribery, revealed those who had accepted corrupt payments, and exposed the network behind the deal – as well as revealing the highly sensitive matter of the Ministry of Defence's complicity in bribery even as the Coalition government professed to be clamping down on corruption.

The team examined corporate records and other histories in the UK, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Liechtenstein, stretching back over 40 years. They revealed the names of officials who had been complicit in decades of bribery, with its origins in the earliest days of the British arms trade in Saudi. A few months after the story broke, the Serious Fraud Office announced a criminal investigation. It continues today.

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/paul-foot-award

Frankly, it stinks. A stain on the good name of Britain.

I get the realpolitik but that shouldn't involve us lowering ourselves to their level.

Tissue_Price said:

NickPalmer said:

Tissue_Price said:

NickPalmer said:

It's a depressing comment on British politics that a major change in policy toward Saudi Arabia is debated here ENTIRELY in terms of which British politician should get most credit for it.

In a micro way, it's like the argument over the NI peace process. Major made a start, Blair completed it. Credit to both of them.

Well, yes, it is a bit depressing. But your analogy is way off the mark: we're not talking two PM's here.

That's why I said "in a micro way".

No, I mean it's a bad analogy because Major & Blair's roles in the peace process are clearly at a comparable level [though Blair probably ought to get some sort of premium for "completing" it].

Whereas [to my eye] Gove & Corbyn's roles in this affair are not at all comparable: one got the policy changed; one called for it to be changed. But if you think the Government changed their tune thanks to Corbyn's intervention, then fair enough.

taffys said:

''A few more blue collar workers on the dole won't matter. ''

Same with the Redcar guys. Little people are expendable, next to our moral preening. Everything must be subordinate to that.