David Cameron is on a tricky tour of the Gulf states this week. It’s not so much that he’s trying to sell arms to the countries he visits: 300,000 British jobs do depend on the defence industry, with 65,000 relying specifically on arms sales. But he is having to tread very carefully on the subject of human rights. Arab countries are uneasy with the way Britain has embraced the Arab Spring, while Britain remains uneasy about those countries’ record on how they treat their subjects.
This morning, in an interview with the BBC’s Frank Gardner, the Prime Minister sought to reassure critics that he will raise rights records with the leaders he meets, but that there was nothing wrong with trying to sell Typhoon jets to Dubai and Saudi Arabia. He said:
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