Why King Abdullah’s visit is a farce
The Queen gets to meet King Abdullah today, after he and 6 plane loads of advisors and aides arrived in London (probably on a shopping spree and partaking in vices not allowed at home).
The state visit with all the trimmings (again costing British taxpayers millions) is the first for 20 years.
Why are we allowing it to go ahead?
Kim Howells, the Foreign Office minister, was telling us again that we should work more closely with the Saudis, because we “share values” with them. And what values precisely would they be, I might ask?
Their terrible record on human rights?
Vince Cable, the acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, announced that he was boycotting the visit and pulling out of the Palace banquet.
“By any standards, and in the assessment of our own Foreign Office, the human rights record of this Government is absolutely appalling,” said Dr Cable. “They point to the systematic discrimination against women, people of other religions, the exercise of systematic corporal punishment, through amputation, the public beheadings.”
British officials insisted that the Government did regularly raise human rights concerns with the Saudi authorities, although discussions are more likely to be dominated by regional crises, counter-terrorist cooperation and commercial ties, worth £3.5 billion a year to British exporters. So it all boils down to money?
It now also revealed that the agenda of hate in British mosques is linked to Saudis. Extremist literature calling for the execution of gays and the oppression of women is being distributed in British mosques.
Researchers found radical or hate-filled books and pamphlets at a quarter of the 100 Islamic religious institutions they visited.
They said much of the literature is linked to agencies of the Saudi Arabian government.
Saudi King Abdullah immediately triggered controversy by accusing Britain of not doing enough to tackle terrorism (people in glass house comes to mind). The claims were hotly denied by the Government.
The sad, awful truth is that we fete these people, we fawn on them, we supply them with fighter jets, whisky and whores. As our close allies across the pond treat them the same (the last figures show that Saudi own 7% of the USA) must we follow suit? How much of the UK belongs to them?
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader.
While I agree with your sentiment, it’s a shame that a phrase in this piece appears to have been lifted straight from Robert Fisk’s leading article in today’s Independent.
“The sad, awful truth is that we fete these people, we fawn on them, we supply them with fighter jets, whisky and whores.”
A perfect copy-and-paste job, right down to the punctuation. Are you actually Robert Fisk? If not, you should credit him in respect of the apparent plagiarism.
DB
Very true, I totally agree, I did not actually cut’n'paste as suggested but (on checking Robert Fisk’s article) I find I actually did use word for word (although anyone could, through proper grammar, like what I use, put the right in the correct punctuation)
I apologise entirely to Robert for seeming to plagarise, after reading his article it stayed with me what he said, as I wrote.
P.S. I had intended to use Rolls Royce as a term within the text, but wasn’t sure whether it was now a UK company benefiting UK residence in its dealings