Does Britain still need an arms industry?

The fiercer the fighting for our boys in Basra and Helmand, the more important you may think it is that Britain has a thriving arms industry to supply them. The reasons that this isn’t so can be summed up in one Arabic phrase which translates, ironically, as ‘dove of peace’: Al Yamamah.

The fiercer the fighting for our boys in Basra and Helmand, the more important you may think it is that Britain has a thriving arms industry to supply them. The reasons that this isn’t so can be summed up in one Arabic phrase which translates, ironically, as ‘dove of peace’: Al Yamamah.

Over the past 20 years, Saudi Arabia has paid tens of billions of pounds to BAE Systems under a deal negotiated by the British government called Al Yamamah. The Saudis got a lot of expensive kit that goes bang. Many people believe bribes were paid. Last December Tony Blair ordered the Serious Fraud Office to drop its investigation ‘in the national interest’, but in June the tougher US Justice Department announced its own investigation.