Shock as British Weapons Used to Hurt People

The Government has registered surprise and dismay that people whom the United Kingdom has deigned to supply with weapons might use those weapons to provoke allegations of human rights abuses. Bahrain's record on human rights has been a matter of concern for some time, and British arms dealers are under strict instructions not to sell weapons to people who might use them to be nasty to other people. However, by some malign twist of multiculturalism, the shotguns, tear-gas canisters, stun grenades and other items of humane chastisement misused by the Bahraini riot police in their recent audition for the wet dreams of Britain's Territorial Support Group were precisely the kind of equipment approved for export by the Government last year. Another beneficiary of the Government's strict arms control policy is Libya, thanks in part to the Vicar of Downing Street's re-affirmation of chumminess with that country's leading thug.

A certain Denis MacShane tried to scrabble to the moral high ground by stealing Daveybloke's line about obeying the law on votes for prisoners: "The idea that British weapons could be used to fire on and injure children makes me feel ill", he said. Fortunately, this delicate state of health manifested itself only after he had completed his ministerial duties for the government that did so much to protect arms dealers from undue harassment.