"Can The Cushite Change His Skin?"

The sanctioning of four commanders of the Rapid Support Forces is welcome as far it goes. Now stop arming the United Arab Emirates. And Saudi Arabia, which arms the other side among other unsavoury characters, by no means all of them three thousand miles from Britain.

While centrism and right-wing populism are con tricks to sell the same economic and foreign policies to different audiences, they do sometimes need to take opposite sides, in the manner of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, to maintain the deception.

British centrists have long supported the Saudi Arabia that supported them handsomely, while the British populist Right is so closely tied to the UAE that it largely resides in Dubai, from which it tweets its hostility to immigration and to Islam. But Britain always arms them both. Such are both main parties in the House of Commons.