I've just finished this week's main work project so I'm coming back to blog slightly sooner than I expected.

The main item of interest in the news for me has been the High Court ruling about the BAe bribery investigation. There has been plenty of opposition to a resumption of the SFO investigation on the radio.

The Today programme had an interview with Francis Tusa of Sky News and Defence Analysis, who characterised the original SFO investigation as a fishing expedition. This seems unlikely; what would be the point? If a case was brought on the basis of the SFO investigation, it could be fatally undermined if it came to light that the SFO had been fishing. the government didn't say it had been a fishing expedition when they called it off, it was all explained by reference to the country's security interests.

It looks as if a BAe supporters lobby is hoping that the long time that's elapsed since the SFO investigation was called off has served to fog people's memories. I've been reading Richard Harris's 'Imperium'and this reminds me of the stalling tactics that Cicero's opponents.

Yesterday's World at One had Frank Gardner saying that the Saudis wouldn't understand why the investigation had to be re-opened and David Buik of BGC Partners arguing that security and defence of the realm required the matter to stay dormant. He almost said that businesses 'hour of need' required it, too, but maybe he realised this didn't sound quite right.

Then, today's Today Programme included an interview with Dennis MacShane saying that the will of Parliament needed to be kept in the equation, too. That just takes us back to the present government and what they want.

So it looks like an issue to divide the country. On the one side the defence industry and its allies saying that the rule of law is luxury in some circumstances and on the other the anti-armaments campaigners and the Liberal Democrats. The logic of their position seems to be that if the overseas markets for UK weapons are going to try to employ pressure to prevent justice being administered, maybe we can't afford our defence industry.

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Not much else to report this week as have been working hard on freelance projects.