All eminent barristers have their specialism, Lord Goldsmith’s is changing his mind. Scholarly integrity is to blame – he likes to give both sides of the argument. His two thrillingly different Iraq war advices are, of course, his crowning achievement; but he’s playing devil’s advocate again today. He writes in the Guardian:
‘I applaud Richard Alderman, director of the Serious Fraud Office for his vigour in pursuing corruption cases in Africa and eastern Europe against BAE. Reports are that he had put an ultimatum to BAE to reach a plea agreement or suffer the full weight of prosecutions. He is right to do so.’
Now, the general sentiment expressed is somewhat at variance with his position on the BAE/al-Yamamah scandal in. In 2008, Lord Goldsmith said:
“The consequence (of not dropping the case) would have been that we would have waited for 18 months, all this damage to the country, all this damage in relation to terrorism could have taken place and at the end of the day we would have said ‘terribly sorry, but we’re not going to proceed with this case in any event’.
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