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The Tories’ Shadow Offence Secretary Liam Fox was showing his compassionate side at the party’s conference this week, by all accounts. His heart was bleeding. For arms dealers.

“I don’t think we support our defence industry enough,” said old Blood ‘n’ Guts of one of the UK’s most heavily subsidised industries. “I was in Iraq last week where they are making big purchases. We made the sacrifices but we are not winning the reconstruction contracts. There is no one from the trade department selling weapons in Iraq.”

Moving on from the fact that, despite appearance to the contrary, the government isn’t strictly the sales division of BAE Systems, is Fox guilty of comparing apples and oranges here? We might be excellent at sending our young men thousands of miles away to die in the desert for a lie but does that make us the best people to pour weapons into the hellish nightmare we subsequently created?

And who knew the ‘liberation’ of Iraq was done on a quid pro quo basis? There’s me thinking we did it to save the people of that country from a bloodthirsty dictator, not provide business opportunities for bloodthirsty arms dealers. Whatever happened to a good deed being its own reward? I bet Liam Foxhole helps old ladies across the street and then holds his hand out for a tip.