Theresa May isn't releasing the Saudi report because they're obviously innocent – much better to blame trade unions

There should be a formula in which the amount of terrorism a country is allowed to promote depends on how many weapons they buy. For $4.2bn you can blow up a couple of public buildings, as long as you help sweep up

BAE Systems has managed to sell 72 Typhoons to Saudi Arabia in a deal known as ‘the peace project’ (MoD)

It’s always encouraging when people you’d expect to be enemies learn to get on, so it’s touching that the Government, that has said many times it doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with violent militant Islam, has apparently decided life’s too short to bear a grudge, and to stay friendly with the rulers of Saudi Arabia.

A report on the funding of terrorists was published this week revealing how “overseas” backing has aided institutions “that teach deeply conservative forms of Islam”. But the Government decided the report shouldn’t be published, and Home Secretary Amber Rudd wouldn’t say which overseas country was doing this funding.

If you were a detective, you might lean towards Saudi Arabia, as money from that country routinely funds this sort of Wahhabi conservative teaching, but Amber Rudd won’t say, so it will probably turn out to be the Isle of Man.

If you were cynical, you might wonder if our attitude towards Saudi Arabia was influenced in any way by the $4.2bn of arms sales since 2015, which defence secretary Michael Fallon says he wants to increase.

BAE Systems has managed to sell 72 Typhoons to Saudi Arabia in a deal known as “the peace project”, which is a quaint title because nothing says peace like a Typhoon fighter jet, capable of firing 1,700 rounds a minute, with a unique operating system that allows several targets to be attacked at once. I expect Tibetan Monks give them to each other on their birthdays.

So you’d think the Government would be furious with the Saudis, we send them billions of dollars’ worth of tanks and guns and fighter planes, and their response is to adopt a violent outlook.

One solution could be a formula, in which the amount of terrorism a country is allowed to promote depends on how many weapons they buy. For $4.2bn you can blow up a couple of public buildings, as long as you help sweep up.

For a deal of a couple of tanks, you’re allowed to go berserk with a pair of nail scissors in a provincial shopping centre, and if you buy a set of rifles you’re allowed to shout “Allahu Akbar” in a farm to the livestock.

It makes you realise that one way of dealing with Isis would have been to allow them to establish and secure their caliphate. Then if they’d rebranded it with a new name like Fruitbatstan, even if they brought in laws such as women aren’t allowed to sneeze unless they’re inside a cardboard box and dressed as a clown, we’d have turned a blind eye as long as they bought a pack of twenty fighter jets off us.

Indeed, if it does turn out this report has been kept quiet because it might upset the Saudis, the people who should be ashamed are those who wrote the thing. Have they no idea how the economy works? It would be much more financially responsible to put the blame on the Oswestry Parish Council, as they hardly buy any arms and don’t help out BAE shareholders at all.

Even better would be if the report blamed the spread of militant Islam on someone the Government doesn’t like much, such as Aslef or the negotiating team at the EU.

The Government often reminds opponents of the arms trade, that deals with regimes such as the Saudis are vital for the economy, and we should bear that in mind with terrorists as well. Cracking down on jihadists could cost thousands of jobs, in the nails, bleach and fertiliser industries, as well as causing problems for manufacturers of blue and white sticky tape with “crime scene, do not enter” on it.

So we can’t complain too loudly about such a valued customer as Saudi Arabia. And I’m sure the Government would be just as understanding if a van hire company said: “It’s all very well complaining about terrorism, but the current methods they’re using offer vital opportunities for my company. It can be frustrating when they drive our vans into the side of a bridge, and tend not to bring the vehicle back, leaving us to have to go and collect it ourselves, but we’re working out a price formula to cover these problems and hope to engage in many more fruitful business deals with them in the future.”

To be fair, the Saudi government probably hasn’t been directly involved in terrorist acts like that, and have used the weapons they’ve bought for tidier explosions, such as what the United Nations describes as “325 attacks on schools, health facilities, markets and water points in Yemen”.

Because the way to stop an organisation causing terror with homemade weapons is to sell them huge proper weapons. We should have gone up to the nutcase who drove into Westminster Bridge and said “you don’t want to muck about like that, mate” and sold him a tank.

So it’s best to keep on with the Western strategy for the Middle East that’s worked so well for seventy years. This is to go berserk at Arab leaders for being undemocratic and nasty to women, leaving the Saudis as our friend, where it’s one election after another and you can hardly move for feminist conferences.

This is why, when it became clear that of all the countries in the region, it appeared the Saudis were the most closely linked to 9/11, the West did the only thing possible and bombed Iraq, as it’s very important after a historic atrocity to invade the next country along.

This was Churchill’s mistake, he should have said: “The Germans have invaded Poland. So we have no choice but to act immediately, which is why we are now at war with Luxembourg.”