Woolf tucks into perfidious Albion

Yesterday night’s news that a senior FCO official lobbied Oxford University on behalf of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi adds more ordure to the already fetid story of Britain’s role in Colonel Gaddafi’s rehabilitation. The Woolf Inquiry into Saif’s dealings with British universities and businesses found that, ‘It was made clear [to Oxford] … that the FCO would appreciate help in this case since Libya was opening up to the West again.’  Oxford resisted; but this episode has hardly covered Britain’s elites in glory: the civil service, BAE and august universities are all criticised in Woolf’s report.

Murmurs of disquiet about the Labour Party’s relationship with the Gaddafi clan continue to sound in certain quarters — the legacy of those awkward pictures and forced smiles in the Colonel’s tent, to say nothing of cosy shooting parties and the Lockerbie bomber’s release. New questions were also raised by the Sunday Times last