Lynne Featherstone

Hurrah! There is now going to be a judicial review into Labour’s decision to pull the plug into the UK-Saudi Al Yamamah arms deal corruption investigation.

For all Labour’s talk about being tough on crime, they axed this investigation, they’ve tried to hinder the US’s investigation, and there’s no decent excuse for not taking corruption in international arms deals seriously. As I wrote previously:

Imagine you’ve been burgled and (by a small miracle!) someone is up in court, charged with the burglary. How impressed would you be if the accused said, “OK, I did do it – but you have to understand. I’m a poor student at the local university and all the French and US students there steal things too, so it wouldn’t be fair if I was left out and had to make do without the proceeds of crime too?” Not very I think! But that’s pretty much the excuse so often rolled out to brush away corruption around international arms deals – everyone else gives out bribes you know, and it would be so unfair and unforgivable if we didn’t too.

You can read the rest of my case over on Liberal Democrat Voice.