Decent British Business

There are few better guides to a nation's moral fibre than the company it chooses for the gun-room and, by all that's soft-powered and do-gooding, there's a nice fat weapons bazaar in London this very week. The Defence and Security Equipment International is the biggest arms fair either in Europe or on the mainland, so Her Majesty's Government has invited delegates from half a dozen countries listed as "human rights priority." A doormat at the Ministry for Wogs, Beads and Trinkets burbled a few months ago that the list includes nations where "we consider that the UK can make a real difference;" which presumably explains why the six include Iraq, where the difference made by the UK and its allies has been nothing if not real. The doormat also burbled that the list includes nations "where we are particularly concerned about human rights issues," which presumably explains why the six do not include the fundamentalist monarchy of the head-chopping House of Saud. Fortunately, in order to avoid any misunderstanding about the possibility of an oversight, a spokesbeing for Her Majesty's Government was on hand to confirm that the lesser breeds had been invited to buy weapons only after stringent checks into their qualifications, character and capacity for repeat orders.