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Our favourite merchants of hot death have fired a depleted uranium-tipped warning shot in the direction of the government:

The head of defence giant BAE Systems has said the company could consider leaving the UK if military spending ever fell below a “reasonable level”.

[...]

But he said he feared the government was “not giving the priority to defence that is needed” – something which could lead to Britain losing its “say in the world” and to BAE having to consider its future

Why he didn’t just give us a rendition of ‘Stay With Me‘ by the Faces is a mystery. The sentiment is identical. In the morning, don’t say you love me, ’cause I’ll only kick you out of the door. Who knew arms dealer could be so cold?

It’s the ’say in the world’ bit I like best. How nice that BAE are mindful of the way diplomacy is conducted in this day and age. The thing is, the way BAE like us to have our say in the world is too much like Robert De Niro in The Untouchables: ‘You can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word.’

It’s all rather ironic really. New Labour have traded virtually every scrap of its principles and dignity for BAE, turning all manner of depraved tricks like a tuppenny doxie in order to keep them sweet and safeguard British jobs (what with call centres not being for the likes of arms workers, unlike miners, dockers and steel workers).

And yet here’s the object of their affections saying all that might not be good enough and suggesting they might have to pull the plug on those jobs themselves. Sooner or later New Labour are going to realise the likes of BAE can’t be bought, only rented. As Gordon packs his bags, maybe he’ll realise that all those grunting bunk-ups his party had with all those fat businessmen in suits wasn’t love like they said.

They’re already leering at a nice new piece of arse – the chubby, posh one.