BAE Systems AGM - by Chris

Once again the annual general meeting of BAE Systems (or British Aerospace as it used to be back in the day...) comes around - a regular event on our calendar - I have probably been about 15 times over the past twenty years! Its the one opportunity to go head-to-head with the board of directors of Europe's largest arms company and ask them 'pertinent questions'. This year the hot topic is corruption and time and time again the Chair and Chief Executive are pressed on the issue. After being regular shot hateful looks by Mike Turner for over an hour (whilst being artfully ignored by Chairman Dick Olver) I finally gets in a question (which is of course dry, witty, erudite and barbed) and manage to wrestle out of Dick Olver the revelation that he has met, and will no doubt meet Gordon Brown again in the future. Mike Turner suddenly becomes inscrutable.

I find myself torn between between on the one hand marvelling that these occasions actually happen - we can walk up to, shake hands with (if one is so inclined) and talk to the senior management of one of the worlds largest arms companies (does this only happen in Britain?) and on the other hand reeling and railing at how people can talk in such a bland and matter-of-fact way about 'products' whose purpose is to main, destroy and kill. Only 364 days to the next one - see you there.