Very late in the day for a reality cheque

THERE was pretty universal delight last weekend to witness the release at last from captivity in Iran of Nazanin ZaghariRatcliffe to be reunited with her husband and daughter. But was this really a diplomatic triumph or a grudging sell-out?

Let us have a quick look at the background.

Way back in 1975 the late Shah, still on the throne, ordered 1,500 British Chieftain tanks. A terrific order with a down payment of £400million which oil-rich Iran promptly paid. Then he fell and under a chain of pretty weird ayatollahs the Iranian attitude to us and all the West became so hostile that the deal was cancelled.

But the money stayed in London and has done so ever since. Iran has been claiming it back ever since while the Chieftain has become a museum piece.

Six years ago Mrs ZaghariRatcliffe, herself Iranianborn and married to a British accountant, was snatched while on a visit to introduce her toddler to the child’s grandparents.

The trumped-up charge was that she worked for British Intelligence and was trying to topple the Iranian government. On the likelihood scales, this is up there with the Tooth Fairy. But she was sentenced to years in the hideous Evin jail.

For six years our Foreign Office yawned, shuffled paper and called it “soft power”, i.e. diplomacy, i.e. bone idleness. Now our new and dynamic Foreign Secretary Liz Truss accepted reality and Tehran will get its £400million back. Could that not have been done years ago?

As usual the score looks like: dictatorship ten, Britain nil.