A few years ago a BAE System’s director addressing an annual meeting would have to duck makeshift missiles and eggs. This week Dick Olver, BAE chairman, merely sidestepped a few rambling questions about the company’s stance on gender equality in Saudi Arabia.

It has been a fraught journey, but Europe’s biggest defence contractor may finally be making progress in the one battle its products are powerless to affect – the struggle to resuscitate its image from allegations of corruption.