BBC: The director of the London School of Economics Sir Howard Davies has submitted his resignation after admitting an "error of judgment" in establishing links with the regime of Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.Sir Howard visited Libya to advise the regime about financial reforms and accepted a £300,000 donation from the Libyan leader's second son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi for research at the LSE.
His departure underlines just how politically toxic links with the Gaddafi regime have become ever since it began its brutal suppression of the Libyan uprising.
Saif al-Islam's former friends and business associates in the west have become embarrassed to admit ever knowing him now his reputation as a liberal reformer has been scuttled.
Yet just a few weeks ago Saif was socialising with the crème de la crème of British society.
So how did so many respectable people get it so wrong?
In part this is because Saif makes such a good impression in the media. Tall and handsome, he speaks fluent English and presented himself as the acceptable face of the Gaddafi regime.
With few exceptions, he sided with the reformers in Libya and seemed prepared to go head-to-head with his father in an attempt to develop the fledgling Libyan private sector and open up the atrophied media.
'Like the Godfather'
But Saif's warm reception in influential business, academic and political circles in the West was also attributable to the eagerness in some quarters to gain access to Libya's oil wealth.
"If Libya was a country without an oil producing capacity, I don't think Saif would have convinced the West," said Dr Omar Ashur, a lecturer in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. >>> Hugh Miles, BBC Radio 4, The Report | Friday, March 04, 2011
