Do you think either Thatcher or Heseltine were corruptly involved in them?

Arms dealing is a murky world and determining what actions support British interests not always made visible but I don't believe either were corrupt.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

If you mean by 'populism' the trend toward appearing to do what the electorate wants, then I agree to a point.

The problem is that in a democracy, what the people want is rather what it is all about. The problem is two fold.

Firstly, governments only appear to be doing what the people want rather than actually doing it, and secondly, a large part of the population are morons. That is not a reflection of their political leaning, but more their inability to understand even part of the bigger picture, or in some cases, any picture.

If politicians represented the best of us and were selfless, clever and efficient, then perhaps our Western illusion of democracy might be a perfect system.

Sadly, it fails on many levels.

A large proportion of the political class and civil servants are morons. The majority of the electorate don't concern themselves with the minutiae of politics. They do recognise incompetence and policies that are against their interests. As much of what government does is both of those things, they should vote for parties with the shortest manifestos, who propose the least governing and who aim to bin as much unnecessary law and regulations as possible.

Have even the most closed minded look at any of the more recent findings on these 'affairs'. You're right that people should have been convicted. In the Arms to Iraq trials anyone who was convicted had their convictions overturned and received compensation payouts - turned out the government had in effect sanctioned the sales. The government was Thatcher. The MOD and MI6 had both used their influence to continue the sales, whilst some individuals pocketed some money. It's not my opinion - the findings have been made in court.
In the Westland affair both Thatcher and Heseltine were involved but Thatcher used it as an excuse to get rid of Heseltine. Thatcher directly leaked the information, then had others take the blame and lied about it.
The one constant in both, surprise, surprise is Mark Thatcher. One day, it will all come out, but we'll be dead. It will make a good book.
Mark Thatcher had approached a South African intelligence officer/ arms dealer and set up a dummy US shell company to do the trading to Iraq as machine tools - along with several others. Mark Thatcher was also an executive director of Westland helicopters. Not that anyone wants to know.

Red and Blue Army!

We can have a civil debate , we are such dinosaurs

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

In the age of identity politics changing them isn't as easy as it sounds.