Al-Yamamah ("The dove") is the name of the deal between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia worth £40 billion that was subject to a Serious Fraud Office investigation into alleged bribes.
Lord Goldsmith announced last December that the SFO's head, Robert Wardle, had spontaneously recalled his investigators from Switzerland for "reasons of national security".
Tony Blair told the Commons he took full responsibility for the decision to withhold details of the £1bn payments to Prince Bandar from the anti-corruption watchdog, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Anyway, I expect you know all the details and just want to hear about the picture:
Al-Yamamah means "The Dove", thus the picture of a dove. You might normally expect a dove to be carrying an olive branch in it's mouth, but in this instance it's a scimitar...which forms part of the Saudi Arabian flag...which is coloured green. The dove's eye is one of those RAF symbols like Spitfires used to have on them. See, it all means something and I'm not shallow! The research on this picture took about ten times as long as the picture itself.
If you don't know the details can I suggest that you start here:
Who exposed this colossal bribery? Why, the feral beast by Simon Jenkins, The Guardian
This artwork is available as a free pdf at: www.dailyartblog.com
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