With respect to the Litvinenko affair:

I don’t understand the position of the British Government," said
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin. "It is prepared to
sacrifice our relations in trade and education for the sake of one man."

Well, yes, obviously. It might be honoured more in the breach than anything else but that is rather what we expect our Government to do. Once the rights of the inividual are abandoned for State or other collective reasons then we no longer live in a free country, do we? Any and all of our rights can be sacrificed to the needs of trade or education: which isn’t actually the point of the exercise at all.

If we overlook the poisoning of one for the sake of a couple of billion a year in trade….wouldn’t the next step to be to acquiesce in shutting up a few of those pesky democrats arguing about Saudi Arabia from London? Or Libya? Or the banning of the Democrats in Exile from Bush’s AmeriKKKa?

Yes, it’s a slippery slope argument but then it really is a slippery slope. The only possible line in the sand is that the law is the law and those suspected of breaking it must be tried. Fairly.