IN response to Teresa Rumsey (Letters, November 28), I quite agree that the relationship that Tony Blair had with Gaddafi was disgraceful and I also believe that Mr Blair should be on trial after his handling of the war in Iraq. But why just criticise him?

After all he is in no way the only British leader who has been friendly with dictators when it suited them. Or removed them when it did not.

After all in 1953 the British government helped fund a coup in Iran against the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossaddeq and installed the dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlavi. This regime, according to Amnesty International, was responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses of any government in the last century.

MEETING: Former Prime Minister Tony Blair with Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.

What about the fact that the British government sold arms to Saddam Hussein for many years until they decided he was an inconvenience?

Why was little mentioned about the invites to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton that were sent to members of the royal family of Yemen? They were doing the same thing to their people as Gaddafi was doing to his.

The more anyone looks at British foreign policy it becomes obvious that it is no moral affair and never has been. It matters little whether a foreign government is a democracy or a dictatorship as long as the interests of the big businesses that our politicians suck up to are served.

Only if the British people are able to take the hands of big business off our democracy and we are properly able to hold our leaders to account will it be possible to have any kind of ethical foreign policy.

GEOFF BREEZE, Hedge End.