Congratulations all round...

Well, congratulations UK, we're officially the biggest hypocrites on the planet. After years of seeking out terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, and evil regimes, it turns out that the UK is actually the world's biggest exporter of arms. According to UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), UK arms dealers added £9.7 billion of new business to their empires last year, giving them a bigger slice of global arms export flavoured pie than even those greedy Americans.

Though the U.S. still has the biggest share of the arms exports market over the last five years (thank you, dead Iraqis), UK arms companies managed to win the highest number of contracts last year thanks to an immense order for Eurofighter Typhoon jets from Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest buyer of arms, along with other orders from Oman and Trinidad and Tobago for offshore patrol vessels.

The news will be most disturbing for UK troops, who are often found to be dying or killing themselves because of faulty equipment that the government claims not to have the funds to replace.

“As demonstrated by this outstanding export performance, the UK has a first-class defence industry, with some of the world’s most technologically sophisticated companies,” Digby Jones, the Minister for Trade and Investment, said.

Perhaps now's the time to pass some of technologically sophisticated equipment on to the UK soldiers that might prefer it to those jamming guns and other old equipment that they've been making do with.

Written by Oli Anderson on 18 Jun 2008 2:40 PM. Permalink