There he goes, pushing hard for Hani Hasan Naji Al Salah’s business again

Can you imagine David Cameron going out on the hustings to drum up support for his gift of a large chunk of public land on the Cornish coast to Mohammed Al Fayed?

No, I didn’t think you could.

And will everyone stop calling him a salesman? I can’t stand it. The hallmark of a good salesman is ace negotiation. Any fool can close a deal by giving the other party whatever they want.

And you’ve really got to be a fool, because by bending over backwards to give Hani Hasan Naji Al Salah whatever he wants, including changing OUR LAWS to accommodate him, the only message a shrew like that is going to pick up is that Muscat is a total walkover and so he’ll be back at the negotiating table with a whole list of unseemly demands which he knows will be met by the desperate beggars.

It’s either lousy negotiation or there’s big corruption involved. I won’t say which I think it is, though I might have done so already.