A Great Trading Nation

Meddling do-gooders are attempting to interfere in the beautiful friendship between Her Majesty's Government and its chums in the head-chopping House of Saud. The Campaign Against the Arms Trade has argued in a judicial review that weapons exports should not be allowed to go ahead in the event of a clear risk of human rights abuses, breaches of international law, and no doubt lots of other things the British Neoliberal Party doesn't care about; and, true to treacherous form, a senior civil servant has been whinging and whining about mere facts instead of how jolly and barnstormingly entrepreneurial our island story continues to be. In this case, the facts concern Sajid Javid, who at the time was the token darky in the Bullingdon cabinet. He was warned that British weapons might be used to kill civilians in the Saudi rampage in Yemen; but, even assuming he cared, he was only the business secretary, which is to say that the Bullingdons considered him a reasonable substitute for Vincent Cable. Over the past two years, Her Majesty's Government has licensed the selling of £3.3 billion in wog-bombing toys, all of them no doubt clearly labelled Not to be used for nefarious purposes; the head-chopping House of Saud has investigated its own conduct to the satisfaction of Boris Johnson; and yet, somehow or other, the questions still continue.