Mad Mike comes in from the cold

ONE of the most controversial matters in international relations over the past few decades has been the steady rise in the use of mercenaries and “private security” companies. Britain, with plenty of ex-soldiers to draw on, looms large in this business, but does not tend to boast much of its prowess. Colonel “Mad” Mike Hoare, an ex-paratrooper, entered popular culture as a byword for mayhem for his exploits in the Congo and South Africa in the mid-1970s. He and his men were eventually picked up trying to topple the government of the Seychelles in 1981, having infiltrated the islands disguised as a visiting beer-tasting team, the “Ancient Order of Frothblowers”.

Successive British governments have kept the mercenaries at arm's length. Now, however, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has decided that mercenaries are, in fact, rather a good thing. They have therefore, in true New Labour fashion, been re-branded as “private military companies” (PMCs). And this week the Foreign Office published a Green Paper proposing a system of licensing or regulation for companies offering military services abroad.