Strangelove - re your question whether Dick Evans has anything to do with BAE any more. The answer is no.
BeAGLE and others - my real gripe is with Jacko's media colleagues who seem very happy to quote CAAT, Corner House and Vince Cable but unwilling to quote anyone with a view which in any way supports BAE. Even the statement Jacko quotes, from the same very senior judges who criticised TB and his merry men and found them guilty of unlawful practice re stopping SFO inquiry, has been largely ignored. Whatever your views of BAE, surely journalists have a duty to present some form of balance in their articles.
It seems to me that in the absence of any credible evidence to support allegations of wrongdoing, the BAE inquiry should have been halted, with this given as the reason. Why anyone thought to play the 'national security' card, I will never understand.
To those who query why the SFO would want to continue with a case that was 'doomed to failure' as Jacko points out, consider the pressure the SFO is under to successfully prosecute companies for wrongdoing. It is a big organisation and has, I understand, a sizeable budget. Yet its success rate would appear to be relatively low. Some pressure to justify existence, perhaps.
And finally re The Guardian. I have it on good authority that, purely by coincidence of course, its journos/photographers just happen to find themselves in the same place at the same time as the SFO. This allegedly included an incident where one of the newspaper's photographers found himself outside the very Chelsea house that a squad of SFO officials was raiding. Surprise, surprise, the photographer was just passing that address at the very time the raid started.
Oh and I do love the fact CAAT feels qualified to pass comment on the value of contributions to the UK economy from the defence industry and finds a whole host of newspapers willing to quote meaningless stats such as 'BAE only employs 35,000 people in the UK, less than the 100,000 employed in the UK's curry houses'.
Can't remember which rag I read this in today but it underlines Jacko's point about a group of journalists covering this issue, who have no idea at all about the background or facts.
Rant over.