Interesting to note that t'Government are backing a Saudi appeal against a Court of Appeal ruling which made it possible to sue Saudi torturers in UK courts. The issue, apparently, is not about torture so much as jurisdiction.

"The UK government condemns torture in all its forms and works to eradicate it wherever it occurs. The intervention in this case is not about criminal responsibility for torture, nor about the UK government's attitude to torture. It concerns jurisdiction, and the way in which civil damages can be sought against a foreign state for acts allegedly committed in its own territory."

So let's get that right. In this case the UK doesn't believe it is right that actions taken in foreign countries that would be illegal if they happened in the UK should be subject to British law. Sounds sensible. After all, what chaos would result if we all went round imposing our own parochial standards on regimes across the world? But what's this? In the case of so-called sex tourists, the UK is looking at changing the law so that people perfectly legally having sex abroad will face charges in the UK if their partners were under the UK age of consent.

Someone who abuses children abroad can only be prosecuted in the UK if their behaviour constituted a criminal offence in the foreign country as well as here. But the low age of sexual consent in some places - it is 14 in Romania and 15 in Bulgaria - can make it impossible for criminal charges to be laid under British law. Ministers are considering requests that in future someone who commits an offence anywhere in the world that would be an offence in this country can be arrested and taken to court.

No offence committed abroad, but what would have been an offence if committed in Britain, leads to trial in Britain. And sleeping with someone under age is less moral than torture how exactly?