simon zadek

BAe’s admission that it has been guilty of illegal practices, basically bribery at scale, is a relief and vindicates the persistence campaigning on this issue by the Corner House and other advocates of clean practice. BAe, once at the starting gate for a radical transformation to produce non-military products, the so-called Lucas Plan, is now one of the world’s largest merchandiser of fine weaponry to the four corners of the globe. Admitting to the evil deeds, one assumes, was part of a deal that satisfied the US’s call for blood and allows BAe to keep bidding for a share of the world’s largest military budget. And since the Saudi family appears to have been removed for now from the limelight, one also assumes that BAe gets to stay in that lucrative market, its dominant source of profit over many years. So i guess everyone is happy now, right ?

Not really, the ultimate loser is once again the UK, its leading politicians which ingloriously sought to cover it up in the spirit of good inter-cultural relations with the Middle East. In truth it beggars belief, that first Mr Blair and then Mr Brown, both who liberally evoke their religious fervor and moral rectitude, could choose to suppress what seemed obvious to us all, that dirty deeds had been committed and needed to be surfaced and penalised according to the law, or at least as close as one can come to that these days. Anwar Ibrahim, in an earlier role as President of AccountAbility, wrote personally to the now Prime Minister pleading with him to take the high ground on this issue as he entered office, citing the ‘ethical north’, a political opportunity, but also an opportunity for the US to regain its stature in international benchmarking of good practice. Sadly there appeared to be no one at home at Number 10, and the advance met with stony silence…imagine how much better this would seem and be if Mr Brown had acted then.

And why do I say once again. Well, what with MPs’ heading for the courts over their liberal attitudes towards expenses, and the murky world of calls to war against Iraq in the spotlight, it is hard not to see a pattern of all-too-visible moral collapse. In fact, the pay-off of Mr Blair seeking at all costs to maintain the UK’s standing in the world has achieved, in a nutshell and as fast as they take to fall to the ground, exactly the opposite.

Thank goodness it just doesn’t matter to anyone much, least of all the citizens of that fair isle who are just trying to sort out their lives, their livelihoods and their families’ security in the face of that more legal transgression by the financial industry, egged on by, yup, you guessed it, those Anglo-Saxon politicians from the UK and the US.