Soft Power

As we all know, because various spokesbeings have informed us, the Government is opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances (except possibly for the work-shy) and thus takes every opportunity to make civilising overtures to the less enlightened. In the case of Saudi Arabia, for example, the Government has robustly continued selling weapons so that the fundamentalist Islamic state can continue its murderous attacks on Yemen; while the Head Boy himself has staunchly bowed and scraped before the kleptocrats of Allah, whose government extracts confessions by torture, and executes people who were children at the time of their supposed offences. As one might expect, such forthright interventions have resulted in spectacular success: Saudi Arabia continues to extract confessions by torture, and to execute people who were children at the time of their supposed offences. Indeed, under the democratising influence of the Head Boy and his squealing, purple Secretary for War and the Colonies, the number of executions is set to double this year, having risen by more than forty per cent last year; and they still buy our weapons, too. What more could one possibly hope for?