The British Government’s evacuation of its subjects from Libya was wrong on so many levels.

Some criticised it for being late and disorganised. Others question if it was even necessary, since neither side in the civil conflict is targeting foreign citizens. A third school of thought is that people who choose to work in a place like Libya do so at their own risk.

An additional layer of controversy came with the news that HM’s officials paid “fees for services” to some of their Libyan counterparts which were bribes in all but name in order to expedite matters.

Private businesses operating in places like Libya often have to do the same. The blame for this rests 100% with the officials who demand bribes, and not at all with the businesses who have to pay them. After all, no business owner wants to incur extra costs, but he may have no choice if he wants to stay in business in such places.

This does not stop government officials prosecuting businesses for being the victims of other government officials.

The same British government which has now bribed Libyan officials has in the very recent past effectively solicited a bribe from BAE Systems in return for not prosecuting them for bribery, and been guilty of gross negligence in its failure to stop British businessman Bill Shaw been jailed by the Afghan government on a particularly ridiculous charge of bribery.

The same British government would also probably have been loud in its condemnation of any British business which paid such “fees for services” to Libyan officials to expedite what it needed done, even if that was to protect its own employees.

The same British government would indeed prosecute such a business if it could.

We can be confident that no British official will face prosecution.

One law for us, another law for them ...again.

The more experience you have of the world, the more you see how badly we are served by the mainstream media. The recent events in Egypt provide the perfect example. Instead of hard news, we are given endless “pieces to camera” so beloved of biased but ignorant journalists. Amid all the jabbering about “people power”, the plain fact of the matter is that a President with a definite –albeit flawed – constitutional and democratic mandate was driven out of office by an old-fashioned military coup.

Mainstream reporters are now cheering on inanely and indiscriminately anyone in the Arab world who looks like a demonstrator. They simply do not understand the difference between Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya.

Bahrain is a fairly civilised place, a well-established and generally benevolent monarchy, relatively free of corruption, and well-integrated into the global economy. By contrast, Yemen is a very corrupt socialist republic, medieval in its attitudes and economic development, and largely living in self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world. Libya was somewhere between the two – a Yemen that wants to be a Bahrain.

This blog tries to avid partisan political comment. The only question we allow ourselves to ask here is, “How does this impact on business?” This is not because we do no not care for anything except business. On the contrary, we care too much and do not want to bore business readers with our equivalent of those biased “pieces to camera” on non-business subjects.

So, strictly from the point of view of business, change can be good or bad, but disorder and the breakdown of established legal systems are usually bad for business. The situation in Egypt is uncertain, and business in general dislikes uncertainty (though there are always the lucky, savvy or fearless few who benefit). On the other hand, any change in Libya or Yemen will almost certainly be for the better.

Violence in Bahrain, however, is undoubtedly bad for business. The cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix is the most high-profile example of nervousness among international business interests, whose investments in Bahrain are as important to the local economy as they are to the global financial network: radical change will disrupt both.

Also undeniably bad for business is the British government’s abrupt cancellation of export licences to Bahrain. These were issued to firms who assumed, in good faith, that Bahrain was a friend of Britain. For the British government to pretend suddenly that they are opposed to the rulers they have recognised – and flattered – for decades is both hypocritical and short-sighted.

The media are not sure how to react to the turmoil in Tunisia and Egypt, but their default position is to be broadly supportive of crowds on the streets because they look vaguely “democratic”.

The markets, on the other hand, are nervous, and, as ever, it is the markets which represent brutal realism and practical experience, while the media represent wishful thinking.

Parallel with, and sometimes overlapping, the economic integration of the European Union, the nations around the Mediterranean have, in recent years, become more and more integrated with each other and with the global economy. Some of these nations, those which are culturally Christian, are EU members; others, those which are culturally Muslim or Jewish, are currently not full members, but some of them would like to be. Yet, irrespective of whether they are EU members or not, the business links between them are growing in importance.

So whatever happens in the Mediterranean Basin matters a lot to the EU, and would matter to EU nations even if the EU did not exist. You only have to glance at the map to see why. Italy, for example, is only a few miles across the water from Tunisia, and the two are close trading partners. In purely business terms they have more in common with each other than Italy does with some fellow EU members further north.

As both cause and effect of increasing prosperity, the Mediterranean Basin has enjoyed a longer period of relative peace and stability than at any time since the zenith of the Roman Empire. Compare the region with how it looked in the 1970s and the change is wondrous. Even problem countries like Libya and Lebanon are making real efforts to become part of the commercial mainstream. Free trade is indeed a powerful force for peace, but it cannot be taken for granted.

It is possible only because Muslim states around the Mediterranean have become increasingly pro-business and, if not exactly pro-Western, at least subtly open to Western influence. This is not always popular. Although all observe the constitutional niceties of democracy, the price of strong government sometimes involves turning a blind eye to democracy in the broader sense.

If – and it is a big “if” – greater democracy comes to Tunisia and Egypt as a result of the current unrest, there is no guarantee that those elected will continue the policies that have delivered such peace, stability, and prosperity as they currently enjoy. If this is the beginning of a return to the uncertainty of the 1970s, the impact on the global economy – and especially on the economic integration of Europe – could be catastrophic.