Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials, 12 June 2007

G8 Summits, which bring together the leaders of the "leading industrial countries" are meant to be a big deal, where important decisions are made.

So let no-one suggest that last week's summit was just a 3-day beano, for world political leaders and their wives to parade themselves, enjoy lavish banquets, and then agree to do next to nothing in the interests of the world population!

This year, the 33rd such beano, in a grand hotel at the resort of Heiligendamm, cost Germany's taxpayers £66m for security alone. Including over £9m for a fence designed to keep protesters like the anarchist "clowns' army" out - unsuccessfully, as it happened.

So which big decisions were made this time? Given the current number one issue for politicians - the threat of climate change - this summit was meant to mark a turning point on the control of greenhouse gases. And finally, Bush was to be brought on board - mostly thanks to Tony Blair's influence, of course.

Sure enough, by the end of the meeting on Friday a major breakthrough had been made! Guess what? The G8 agreed to "seriously consider" cutting carbon emissions by 50%... by 2050!

And we were told how difficult it had been to get the word "seriously" inserted before the word "consider" with each leader claiming it to his own credit!

Little wonder that normal, ordinary people find little to take "seriously" in the grand meetings of the leaders of the world!

After all, their record on aid to Africa, two years after Gleneagles, shows how empty their promises are. Having implemented some debt relief to the most impoverished countries, aid was actually cut.

Of course, the $50bn aid promised for the all the poor African countries by 2010 was a micro-drop in the ocean anyway. But they have not even begun to deliver that drop.

So now the rich countries can commit to cutting carbon emissions by way of complicated "offsetting schemes" and carbon trading, precisely because no ordinary person has a clue about what this entails nor the means to check on it. Until it is too late.

That said, perhaps one should judge these leaders on what they fail to mention. Because behind all of this hot air about hot air, and political parading, looms the catastrophic situation in the Middle East - Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan. The G8 leaders, whose governments all have a bloody hand in creating this catastrophe had nothing to say about it. It was not even on their agenda.

The amount of money which was at stake in the BAE bung to Saudi Prince Bandar - £1 billion - is not peanuts. So no wonder government ministers felt obliged to cover it up. And no wonder Blair stepped in last December in order to stop the Serious Fraud Office from carrying on with their investigation.

Britain is one of the world's leading arms exporters with about 20% of the world market. Its biggest customer is Saudi Arabia. The Al Yamamah contract - sealed with Thatcher's son's kiss 20 years ago - had been worth £40 billion to BAE Systems, which is Britain's biggest arms manufacturer.

When Blair stopped the fraud investigation in December, BAE and Saudi Arabia were about to sign a new contract worth another £40bn to replace Al Yamamah. Only days before this, Prince Bandar had met British diplomats in Riyadh.

The reason given then, and now, for the halting of the enquiry by the SFO, is that it was in danger of damaging "national security"! Sure thing! Especially if you consider, as Blair and his ministers obviously do, that BAE shareholders' dividends are what keeps the "nation" secure!

And of course, these shareholders could indeed be a bit damaged, if BAE is found to have breached OECD bribery laws. Which it obviously did. And it is also abundantly clear that successive ministers over the past 20 years have been covering up this bribery and corruption.

For the last 10 of these years, it has been Blair's remit and that of his ministers. They have not shirked from their duty to the rich BAE shareholders. They have even broken their own rules to give them a helping hand.

Which only goes to show, that when you go to vote under this system, whoever you vote for, you will end up giving a mandate for policies which line the pockets of the rich. Not that we did not already know it!