Can't deny that the Attorney General is a very clever man. When asked to comment on what he knew, he wasn't able to, because "UK national security was at risk". Ha ha, who is head of MI6? Oh yes, that man Scarlett, he of 45 min WMD fame......Wonder what he will get out of this one. At least we know he has a proven track record of working with the Attorney General.
Off with both of their heads I say. Guardian comment today.
"The Guardian's initial revelations gave the Serious Fraud Office little choice but to open an investigation. In 2005, the Saudi government informed Blair it would not lodge another order with BAE (for 72 Eurofighters) unless this case was abandoned. Last December, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, instructed the SFO to drop the case. He and the prime minister cited "national security" as the reason for this surrender. Something was being secured all right: but it was BAE's income and the backsides of the ministers - led by Blair - who put the company's interests ahead of the nation's.
This was not the first time Goldsmith intervened to prevent justice from being done. He has come to symbolise everything that is wrong with Blair's government: the cowardice of ministers, lawyers' truths, capitulation to corporations and foreign governments, and the judicial abuses permitted in a nation without a constitution. He represents something very old - the British establishment's closing of ranks - and something new: the corruption of purpose and method that has attended the project of liberal interventionism from its inception."