Our military industrial simplex.

It goes from the like of Olver to Pole1 to Pole2 to Phoney1.

Britain's level of defence spending isn't related to real threats we face, but the needs of our military-industrial complex.

Blair was eager not to antagonise British arms companies, and BAE Systems in particular, which developed extremely close relationships with senior figures in Downing Street." A Downing Street aide reported that whenever the head of BAE encountered a problem, "he'd be straight on the phone to No 10 and it would get sorted".

We don't know what Blair's proposed new nuclear missiles are for, but after the money has been spent a justification is bound to emerge.

Some body must have some WMD somewhere, surely.

Secret payments of millions of pounds from BAE have been found in Swiss accounts.

Blair is said to be the beneficiary of some of those funds.

Details from the accounts would help to establish whether money was channelled to people close to him, sources said.
BEA wants the SFO to abandon the investigation before anything else comes to light.
Speculation over the progress of the inquiry led to a dip in the company's share price earlier this week.

But the SFO appears determined to focus on the accounts and their links to people close to Blair and Peter Mandelson.

Though he is not regarded himself as a target of the inquiry - BAE acknowledges that the inquiry is aimed at the company and Mr. Mandelson.

Both the Swiss legal authorities in Bern, and the SFO director, Robert Wardle, have been keeping their moves secret.

Swiss authorities said yesterday: "The office of the attorney general of Switzerland confirms being in charge of the execution of a request for mutual legal assistance in criminal matters from the UK serious fraud office relating to this case." They and the SFO refuse to give any further details. The MoD, which is negotiating the deal to sell Eurofighters, remained silent.

The only person with the power to halt joint SFO-MoD police inquiries is the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith who is a close friend of Blair.. But Britain is party to an OECD agreement, under which national economic interests are not allowed to stand in the way of efforts to stamp out bribery.

BAE said: "BAE Systems is not obstructing the investigation and continues to fully co-operate with the SFO." Their spokesman said: "We will not be commenting on any point of substance. This cannot be taken as any kind of admission."