Letter: Aid for arms deals is immoral

YOUR leading article on corruption in the arms trade says that 'arms manufacture is an important part of British industry', comments that 'we may need to live with bribery' and that politicians should avoid hypocrisy, but draws no wider moral.

Oppression by race, class, sex and age has been and still is an important part of many economies. Slavery was an important part of the economies of ancient Greece and Rome, and of modern Britain and America. Concentration camps were an important part of the economies of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. The arms trade is an important part of not just the British but the Western economy - that is, we live by making and selling instruments for foreigners to kill other foreigners. It is time to draw a wider moral.

Mary Lewis

Freedom Press

London E1