Sam Leith has a spirited article in today's Telegraph on the al-Yamamah corruption inquiry.
Memorably dismissing the 'realpolitick' argument for dropping the inquiry as "piffle, poppycock and monkey nuts", he goes on to make a more substantial point:
"In the end, [the investigation] was stopped after an explicit threat to withdraw a big arms contract, and an implicit threat that "lives would be put at risk" were the Saudis to withdraw their co-operation with our counter-terrorism operations. That is to announce that we're willing to do business with people who promise to connive in the murder of our citizens unless they get their way. Nice."
I am sure that the world's more business-minded despots will have noted that Britain is not only willing to sell its armaments but its soul too.