Back in December I blogged about the extraordinary sequence of headlines concerning the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) enquiry into arms deals with Saudi Arabia. At the time, you may remember, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, said that based on a careful examination of the evidence, he was of the view that a prosecution 'could not be brought'.
According to today's Guardian, though, it appears that that judgement may have been based less on the evidence initially presented to him by the SFO, and more on directions from the Prime Minister's office. They suggest that conversations with Number 10 led the Attorney General to reverse his view that BAE (the company in question) had at least some case to answer, even if only as part of a face-saving plea-bargain.
It all seems a very long way from the "ethical dimension to foreign policy" we heard so much about in 1997.
'During his first Mansion House speech as Prime Minister in 1997 Tony Blair said: "Human Rights may sometimes seem an abstraction in the comfort of the west, but when they are ignored, human misery and political instability follow. The same is true if we ignore the ethical dimension of the trade in arms."'
- The Observer, 11th May 2003
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But which ethical dimension anyway? Surely "ethical" merely means guided by some system of values. Did Blair ever commit himself to a specific system of values, or did he merely make bland statements onto which we could all (optimistically) project our own values? Some politicians would argue that their own system of values is driven by the interests of their constituents. On this argument, there is an ethical dimension in protecting the British economy and British jobs. I wonder what Gordon Brown would say?
Posted by RichardVeryard on February 02, 2007 at 12:24 PM GMT+00:00 #