I'm breaking one of my usual rules here and posting while still angry. But, as Bill Murray once put it, it's more a guideline than a rule. This story is as bad a piece of news as I've heard for a long while, or at any rate this month. Jack Straw knows that there are only two likely uses for any military hardware sold to China: internal repression or agression against Taiwan, with the strong possibility of their being used against American ships and planes - no, correct that, against American pilots and sailors - in the latter case.
So why is this happening? One scarcely need ask - too many businessmen and politicians in the EU look at China and you can practically see the dollar (or Euro) signs come into their eyes. Presumably we're also doing this to try to make the French like us again. Memo to Tony and Jack: the French never liked you to begin with and never will. Now they will despise you as well for being just as hypocritical as they are.
This is it. Basta. I love Tony's idealism, which is genuine, but his magnificent speeches about freedom can't change the fact that this is a disgrace. Dubya at least has the excuse that coddling the Saudis and suchlike nasties have been US policy for decades and he can't change everything at once. But what excuse can there be for making a change to an existing policy in a way that benefits a tyranny? And don't try the 'constructive engagement' line. That has some validity, but having shiny new French weapons will strengthen the nasties in China, the hard-core nationalists and militarists, not the more pragmatic types. The Government just lost my vote.