Britain should not mistake its allies for friends

It would be hard to dream up a more absurd piece of political satire than an agency of the British government called Just Solutions International winning a contract to train prison officers in a country that has executed 175 people in the past year, many of them in public beheadings for offences such as sorcery, witchcraft, adultery and political activism. That it sought this contract in the first place is a sign of the great void at the heart of our foreign policy.

This week, the Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, pulled out of the deal with Saudi Arabia — thereby attracting the ire of the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, who called him ‘naive’ for doing so. That is a word better applied to Mr Hammond. A Saudi Supreme Court ruling dating from February decrees that judges may pass down the death sentence even if an offence has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.