THEY STILL FEEL THE HEAT IN THE REGIMES OF THE DESERT SANDS

THE misadventures of Matthew Bridges, recently freed from a life sentence in Dubai should provide an object lesson to three categories – all of whom habitually ask questions for a living. These are investigative journalists, academics and researching authors.

I have been two of these (the first and third) so I know.

In what we are pleased to term “the West”, meaning that community of nations governed by democracy, enquiry is not a crime and rarely even a suspicious activity. But we are a global minority. Any non-democracy (the majority) has a vigorous secret police who regard all probing as a form of espionage. That is what Master Bridges fell foul of.

We would be foolish to kid ourselves that our “friends” in the world are all democracies or anything like them. Quite a few of our allies in a very imperfect world have extremely busy torture chambers. The chandeliered ministerial receptions, the warm handshakes and media-posed photos, all look fine, but that is because you cannot hear the screams of those who have displeased the hierarchs.

A guaranteed way to do this is to seek to uncover what is not revealed. It is called research. That is what we call it. They call it spying. So if a critical Saudi journalist is lured into his country’s Turkish Consulate, strangled, dismembered and smuggled in bits out of the country, there are two things you can do. Demonstrate with a placard inside Saudi Arabia and say goodbye to the soles of your feet, or, like Donald Trump, think of the defence contracts, shrug and drop it. Just don’t think it is going to change any time soon.

And if you are going on holiday in a place that wouldn’t know a vote from a parking ticket, just keep quiet, enjoy the sun and you’ll have a wonderful time. Cynical? C’est la vie, mate.