Thursday’s decision by the Serious Fraud Office to abandon a two-year long investigation into allegations that BAE Systems paid kickbacks to unspecified members of the Saudi royal family from a £40bn arms deal may go unnoticed in the pyschodrama over the report into the death of the Princess of Wales and amid the public clamour over the serial killings of prostitutes in Ipswich. Add to that Tony Blair’s being interviewed by police in the cash-for-honours affair as well, and Thursday may have turned out to be a good day for, as it were, burying the news. But the SFO decision should cause dismay.

Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, told the House of Lords it was the opinion of the prime minister and the government that to continue the investigation would seriously damage UK-Saudi relations, and by extension, British national security. Britain’s chief legal officer then made the specious assertion that we had “to balance the need to maintain the rule of law against the wider public interest”.