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Well, I’ve found the document that’s been causing me so much trouble; the reason why I couldn’t find it yesterday is (it would appear) because it was a pdf file that I’d sent to myself rather than printing out & actually filing. Idiot that I am.
In other news, I see that lots of people have written to the Government to complain about the closing of the Serious Fraud Offices investigation into BAE arms deals. Now I admit that I could be wrong, but my reading of this is that the events that were being investigated were taking place in the 1980’s & this sort of action was normal & what took place. In fact, it was, as I understand it, entirely legal & above board; unsavoury, perhaps, but still not illegal. The law was changed in subsequent years and – according to the reports that I’ve seen, the practice stopped.
If this is the case then what is the SFO doing investigating this stuff in the first place? Its not a crime to do something that is not illegal; changing the law doesn’t permit retrospective prosecutions to take place. So what the hell is going on?
I can understand why people are protesting at it – it’s the arms trade & thus is evil incarnate & never mind the fact that it gives the UK jobs, soft power (via renewal & maintenance contacts) & the money would have been spent somewhere else – probably the US – but why haven’t the government come out & said “It was not illegal in 1980 to do this, so it’s a stupid & pointless investigation in the first place”. (In fact, if it were me in charge, I’d go the opposite direction & demand why the SFO were investigating something that’s not a criminal action & are wasting the taxpayers money.)
I don’t like being forced to defend the arms trade, God known that its an unsavoury trade that makes profit out of human misery – but at the same time, it strikes me as being such a blatant attempt to reverse engineer a puerile prosecution over something that was not illegal at the time. Campaign for tighter legislation, or ban the trade outright – but claiming that the government is in hoc to the arms trade & is jeopardizing British justice by ending this investigation strikes me as being just plain crackers.
S
In other news, I see that lots of people have written to the Government to complain about the closing of the Serious Fraud Offices investigation into BAE arms deals. Now I admit that I could be wrong, but my reading of this is that the events that were being investigated were taking place in the 1980’s & this sort of action was normal & what took place. In fact, it was, as I understand it, entirely legal & above board; unsavoury, perhaps, but still not illegal. The law was changed in subsequent years and – according to the reports that I’ve seen, the practice stopped.
If this is the case then what is the SFO doing investigating this stuff in the first place? Its not a crime to do something that is not illegal; changing the law doesn’t permit retrospective prosecutions to take place. So what the hell is going on?
I can understand why people are protesting at it – it’s the arms trade & thus is evil incarnate & never mind the fact that it gives the UK jobs, soft power (via renewal & maintenance contacts) & the money would have been spent somewhere else – probably the US – but why haven’t the government come out & said “It was not illegal in 1980 to do this, so it’s a stupid & pointless investigation in the first place”. (In fact, if it were me in charge, I’d go the opposite direction & demand why the SFO were investigating something that’s not a criminal action & are wasting the taxpayers money.)
I don’t like being forced to defend the arms trade, God known that its an unsavoury trade that makes profit out of human misery – but at the same time, it strikes me as being such a blatant attempt to reverse engineer a puerile prosecution over something that was not illegal at the time. Campaign for tighter legislation, or ban the trade outright – but claiming that the government is in hoc to the arms trade & is jeopardizing British justice by ending this investigation strikes me as being just plain crackers.
S
