Whether it actually works is another matter. It means we end up with junk like the SA80. Especially if we rely on bribery for the export market.

I haven’t looked into the details of the particular case but I suspect it is not so much the deal falling on the UK taxpayer and saudi oil money going from one bank account to another.

I rather imagine that the contract cost = production costs + profit + bribe and while the whole lot comes out of one set of bank accounts, the bribe goes back into another (more personal) one. So, in many ways it is an entirely Saudi problem.

I strongly doubt that the UK government would be supporting such a deal if the profits and tax revenue did not significantly exceed the bribes.

A more reasonable midpoint would be ‘we’ll buy these expensive planes which we don’t really need, and you’ll buy something equally pointless from us.’ That doesn’t work with the Saudis, because they don’t produce anything except oil.

Am I a cultural relativist? Well, it depends on your precise definition but I reckon that most people who know me would say not.

But does not mean that I close my eyes to other cultures (by which I mean the sum of the formal and informal rules present in a society). When I first lived in a country where bribery was the rule rather than the exception I was more than a little shocked. But on closer examination such issues seem far less black and white than they did at first. This makes me wonder whether you have any direct experience of such systems.

The things is, from under your cloak of liberal interventionism, what you are really arguing for is cultural supremacy: that what you should perceive as more backward cultures should “progress” and follow your rules.

And, you may not be surprised to hear, I see this whole argument from the other side. Many people across the world strongly resent having cultural values imposed from them from the US and the UK.

This is not to say that I do not believe that the values prevalent in the UK compare extremely favourably with those in many countries. I think they do. But I also think we need to be extremely wary about throwing our weight around and crowing about how wonderful we are and how everyone should be like us.

You might not like it, but there are other narratives in the world than that of US/UK cultural dominance. Of course, you may want to fight the good fight and tackle these head on. I, however, would strongly prefer to see the UK as the “beacon on the hill” that others aspire to, rather than the local laird imposing his will on the masses.

Sure, sometimes this will mean doing things in ways that you don’t necessarily like, but there is a huge amount to fix in the UK without needing to set out to govern the world.

Oh, wait.

Yes, indeed, Norman Scott. The relativism that Passing Tory preaches is the very same principle that is used to defend widow burning, female genital mutilation, arranged marriages, etc, etc.

The British tradition of grovelling to Saudi plutocrats goes way back.

Readers may recall a film, “Death of a Princess”, about the public beheading of a member of the Saudi Royal Family who had been caught having sex with a man outside marriage.

The film was shown on television (despite heavy government bullying of the TV company), and Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador in protest. So Lord Carrington was dispatched to perform anilingus on every Saudi bigwig he could find, and government ministers lined up to praise Saudi Arabia, its political system, its customs, religion, culture, etc.

Dr Jesse Dickson Mabon (a Labour defector to the SDP) said on “Question Time” that “Death of a Princess” was a “heinous film”, and that we in the UK have no basis for claiming that our way of doing things is better than the Saudis’. A relativist bootlicker if ever there was one.

I guess Passing Tory agrees with Dr Mabon.

… I’m sorry PT this is such a barrowload of relativist crap that I’m surprised you haven’t defected to us already…

It’s also the defence that Sicilian politicians used in respect of failing to deal with the mafia… it’s just ‘our thing’ or ‘our way’ they would say. People tried to come up with elaborate cultural explanations for the mafia, but the simple truth is that mafia crimes are committed by criminals and flourish due to ineffective enforcement and convenient expedience by the authorities.

The same is true of bribery and corruption, and it is simply bollocks to suggest that there is something of a cultural tradition of bribery in some countries that should mitigate the way will try and deal in those countries. Anymore than we should put up with criminal intellectual property theft in China. We pressure their governments and lead by example.

When we don’t do the latter, we undermine the former and make the problem worse. Both the previous Conservative and current Labour governments have been complicit with engaging in bribery in Saudi Arabia and failing to apply pressure to the Saudi government to clean up their act. That in turn is emblematic of a host of weak positions that have enabled the Saudi-state to stagger on, unreformed in a manner that threatens our security through the formenting of international terrorism.

It makes the pathetic position of the South African government in respect of Zimbabwe look like a rather mild piece of weakness and complicity by comparison.

Let me explain. I should at this point say that I know very little about Saudi arms deals, but I know a little more about “alternative business environments” – someone mentioned that the Saudis are skimming off only 30%:- it is rumoured to be closer to 60% where I live so these things are relative.

Superficially of course it looks like a no-brainer the other way. Why should we condone bribery on international deals when one of the strengths of the UK is that it is relatively free of such behaviour?

But then we need to look at what corruption actually means within the societies in which it operates. Take the extreme case of Azerbaijan. Here the corruption was so organsised that there was a central price list for the level of bribe required to get anything done. If you were feeling enterprising, it would have been perfectly possible to borrow cash to buy a position which you would pay back from bribes that you took in. Sounds terrible, but in fact it is not so very different from buy-to-let.

Now it is easy to sit in ivory towers in the UK and be rude about the ways in which other cultures operate, with very little real understanding of the pros and cons (and, believe me, there are definitely two sides to this coin). It becomes a real problem when you have to resolve which codes will operate in international deals. It seems to me that those posting here feel that deals with the UK should be made totally on the UK’s terms (or on the terms of some international pannel dominated by western interests)

Now, if I am a national of another country then I might be put out (to put it mildly) if the UK were to completely ignore the way that things are done in my country and insists on imposing its own rules and regulations. Would I insist on feeding pork to Jewish friends who come to dinner? No, I would find a compromise.

It is not, I think, a coincidence that the UK political parties with experience of government (i.e. Labour and the Tories) realise this whereas the Lib Dems stomp around like little islanders expecting the natives of other coutries to drop their slightly backward customs and play by our rules or else. Very Palmerston.

Would I like to live in a world without bribery? Sure. Should we impose it on the rest of the world? Rather like democracy, I think these things are best developed from within rather than imposed from without.

Nothing dodgy there then.

Maybe it was more?

It certainly bought their support, the crooked sleazy Tories.

Clearly it is same old Tories they are after all the party of arms for Iraq. However I would have thought Robin Cooke would be spinning in his grave with the way Labour is behaving.

As Paul L has observed for once I wish that Labour/Cons would want to be more like the U.S. and look at the way that the Justice Department actually makes an effort to tackle white collar crime.

Gordon Brown appeared to recognise that as a problem and now has ‘U’ turned.

I expect the US to give him a hard timne on the matter as they have tightened up on this law for US companies and will frown on unfair competition.

I am proud that our party has taken a stand on this and is not afraid of bullying tactics.

How come then after years of investigation by the police and the Serious Fraud Office, both of them thought there was plenty of evidence that a law had been broken and hence there was a major investigation going on?

If what you’re saying is correct, the investigation would have been ended years earlier, without any need for Saudi pressure or Labour pressure.

I appreciate you might not care about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, the funnelling of the tax take from that country’s vast resources into repression and the hands of a few, formenting extremist terrorism in reaction, or our Government facilitating the provision of weapon systems to help them do it.

But if that is your view, perhaps, like the Government, you should have the sense to wallow in your swamp in silence.