Women's Lib Reaches Saudi Arabia?

I suppose it's good news: women will be allowed to vote in local council elections by 2015. Maybe. It's been promised before. And it's hardly worth applying match to bra for, quite frankly.

I see Saudi women as one of those unfortunate social groups whose rights have to be set aside to keep the rest of us in the style to which we have become accustomed. You know, like the Palestinians, or those little Bangladeshi children who make such a good job of stitching together my undercrackers. Such nimble fingers.

After all, if we told our Saudi friends that women were people too, they might not sell us all that lovely oil. So it's much better to keep quiet. So what if they aren't allowed to leave the house without a male relative, drive cars, travel, work or marry without male permission, or object to marital rape? Collateral damage.

No, it's much better to bomb neighbouring countries in the name of human rights.  Before Paul Uppal MP was a twinkle in the Tory Party's eye, I asked my Labour MP why he voted for the Iraq war because it would 'bring democracy and human rights', while declining to invade Saudi Arabia on the same grounds. To my eternal regret, he refused to explain beyond saying that the situation was 'totally different'. Really?

The man behind the guns

I see from today's paper that Britain's government isn't just cheerleading and arming the Saudi Arabian government's military action against citizens of the UAE asking for democracy: it's training the snipers. It's not a surprise, of course: Saudia Arabia is the most glaring example of realpolitik, in which your friends can be as barbaric as they like whereas your enemies are publicly humiliated for the slightest misdemeanour. 

Britain has been providing training for the Saudi national guard to improve their "internal security and counter-terrorism" capabilities since 1964 and continues to do so. Members of the guard, which was established by the kingdom's royal family because it feared its regular army would not support it in the event of a popular uprising, are also provided places on flagship UK military courses at Sandhurst and Dartmouth. In Saudi Arabia, Britain continues to train the guard in "urban sharpshooter" programmes, the MoD confirmed.

"Last year we raised concerns that the Saudis had been using UK-supplied and UK-maintained arms in secret attacks in Yemen that left scores of Yemeni civilians dead," said Oliver Sprague, director of Amnesty International's UK Arms Programme.

Defence minister Nick Harvey confirmed to parliament last week that the UK's armed forces provided training to the Saudi national guard. "It is possible that some members of the Saudi Arabian national guard which were deployed in Bahrain may have undertaken some training provided by the British military mission," he said. 

Saudi Arabia, let's remind ourselves, imprisons and thrashes women found in public without a male relative. Freedom of assembly doesn't exist. Women's rights are an alien concept. Torture is widespread. The morality police have dictatorial powers. It is far, far worse than Iran, whom we're encouraged to see as the nastiest country on earth. 


Now that the British role in propping up this regime has come to light once more, I fully expect my MP to kick up a fuss. 


No, only joking. This is his contribution to freedom and democracy:

Saudi Arabia All-Party Parliamentary Group - Treasurer

To encourage and develop diplomatic, cultural and social exchanges between the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UK with the aim of achieving greater understanding and fostering mutual respect.

Well done, Paul Uppal. 

When human rights meet oil

You may have noticed that the US has suddenly got a lot tougher on its allies as they start to topple - after supporting some vicious dictatorships over the years. Obama calls for tyrants to go and freedom to reign.

Yet one country is immune: pretty much the worst one of all - Saudi Arabia. No religious freedom. No political or trades union organisation. No freedom of movement. Women aren't allowed out of the house without a male relative. Torture is rife, capital punishment frequent, fair trials unheard of.

It's worse than Libya, Iran, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, the UAE… What do the Americans (and their British mini-Me) have to say to that?

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner, said the U.S. administration was seeking more information about al-Sherif's status. "We understand there's an active debate on a lot of these social issues in Saudi Arabia, and we trust the government of Saudi Arabia to give careful consideration to these voices of its citizens as they speak about issues of concern," Toner said.

Fearless. That'll do the job. Next up: declining to shake hands with Kim Jung-Il at the UN.

Consistency is over-rated, isn't it Mr Uppal?

My underwhelming MP, Mr. Paul Uppal, is the son of refugees: Kenyan Indians forced to flee by Idi Amin, one of history's worst monsters.

So you might think that he'd have some sympathy for the plight of the oppressed in the East. Perhaps a word in favour of the Bahrainis?

Not a bit of it. Paul's a multimillionaire. He sees himself as one of a band of victims, harried by the taxman and the grasping poor. When the showdown between the Saudi armed forces and the desperate and unarmed Bahraini poor began today, he's firmly on the side of dictatorship and reaction.

Why else would he be a member of the

Saudi Arabia All-Party Parliamentary Group - Treasurer

To encourage and develop diplomatic, cultural and social exchanges between the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UK with the aim of achieving greater understanding and fostering mutual respect.

Doughty fighters for democracy and human rights, no doubt. Let's have a look at the officers:

Daniel Kawczynski

Rehman Chishti

Andrew Rosindell

Lord Rogan

Paul Uppal

Khalid Mahmood

Delightful. Khalid Mahmood is a pretty unpleasant Labour MP, Rogan is a disgusting Ulster Unionist, and the rest are from the white-coats-flapping-nurse-the-screens wing of the Tory party. Rosindell, for instance, flirts with the iconography of the BNP and had to be forced  to quit the Monday Club (toff BNP) by his party leader to avoid embarrassment. They will not, one suspects, be asking the Saudis why women aren't allowed out without male relatives, and banned from driving, for instance. These are the officers: the members are a motley crowd of spooks, arms-dealers' pets, directorship-chasers and eye-swivellers.

You can gauge the kind of links they want with Saudi Arabia by looking at chairman Daniel Kawczynski's new book, Seeking Gaddafi. He's the MP for Shrewsbury and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Libya (mysteriously absent from the official list but referenced by various MPs). Is it a fierce attack on that repulsive dictator? Er, no. Not according to the Tory-supporting Daily Telegraph:

The “principled engagement” that he advocates means that oil and gas trump human rights.

Fair enough, but at least spare us the pious platitudes: “As we become more interdependent, culturally and economically, the chances for honest, productive conversations on all the issues that both unite and divide us grow ever greater.”

It is also extraordinary that a book of this type should contain no maps.

Chair of two pro-fascist groups? I hope the voters of Shrewsbury and Atcham are taking a view on this.

What do these MPs do? They kiss bottom and get schmoozed. In return, these revolting regimes get a friendly hearing in the corridors of power. Will Uppal's constituency citizens gain any benefit from his hobnobbing with brutal medieval dictators? Not that I can see. Take Bahrain: their Parliamentary Group (virtually all Tory) is funded by… the Bahraini government. Not much independent thinking will be going on there, I fear.

Don't worry, Uppal's not just thinking about foreign murderers. He's on other lobbying efforts (not Select Committees of course: they have authority and demand hard and honest work):

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Excellence in the Built Environment

To promote excellence in the built environment.

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Men's Health -Vice-Chair

To raise awareness of health issues affecting men.

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community

To increase the coverage of race equality issues in Parliament; to update members on race equality issues and up-to-date research; and to connect the group with race equality organisations.

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees

To provide a forum for the discussion of issues relating to refugees, both in the UK and abroad, and to promote the welfare of refugees.

All-Party Parliamentary Group for British Sikhs – Treasurer

To support and promote the interests of Sikhs in Britain; to work with British Sikhs to celebrate Sikh culture in the UK; and to ensure full equality for all British Sikhs

All-Party Parliamentary Strategic Industries Group

To examine and discuss ways of safeguarding UK industry and expanding opportunities for growth for the UK's strategic national industries.

All-Party Parliamentary Group for Transplantation-Vice-Chair

To promote leadership of organ donation and transplantation in Parliament in order to support the implementation of the Organ Donation Taskforce's recommendations, ensure that the target to increase organ donation after death by 50% by 2013 is met, and significantly increase the number of organ transplants.

All-Party Parliamentary Urban Development Group - Chair

To ensure the progression of urban renewal and sustainable development in the UK and raise, within Parliament and outside bodies, the profile and understanding of the regeneration process and the role that can be played by the private sector, particularly the property investment community.

Some of these are of course simply to look active and caring without actually doing anything. Others are good for electoral purposes - local Sikh voters will be keen on his membership of the British Sikh Group. Yet others are classic Paul, such as the Urban Development and Built Environment Groups: he's a property speculator. 'Excellence', you may presume, means 'profitable'. As to the 'race and community' group: perhaps we should refer back to his only public statement on race relations (deleted along with the rest of his blog but saved for posterity by his itchy white admirers):

"It is with particularly sadness that I recently heard that  James McGrath (Chief of staff to our previous Chairman) has been pushed out of his job working with Boris Johnson.  Accusations of racism have been levelled against him, as a few words have been taken out of context and jumped upon by the PC brigade. I’ve met James on numerous occasions and found him to be a warm, witty and charming individual. As someone who prides himself as being fairly astute at spotting such things, I am wholly convinced that he does not possess a racist bone in his body.

Rather he appears to be the victim of the McCarthyistic mouth foaming utterances of the race relations industry, which through accusation alone can slay political careers and stifle well intentioned and principled debate. I say this because I have seen with my very own eyes the modus operandi of this circus which employs individuals to perpetuate this climate of political correctness. In reality this industry/business does dreadful damage to Britain’s real race relations. It seems more concerned with securing it’s own funding streams and non jobs for it’s membership of zealots. The cost of this is all is so much more than financial, as we lose decent people and gag those who point to the emperor’s new clothes."

His friends in the property industry know where he's coming from: money-green is far more important than brown:

Yet four decades after Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech against Commonwealth migration, part-time property developer Paul Uppal is more worried about empty rates than race relations or voting reform. “I would like to help change the face of property,” he says. “It doesn’t get a good press, and the industry doesn’t bang the drum hard enough about its role in the wider economy.”

Finally, what if you want to see Paul and ask him what he's up to?

Well, he's not keen.

Many people think that their MP can solve all their problems: this is sadly not the case and there are many examples where contacting an MP may result in a problem taking longer to resolve if the issue in question is not their responsibility. MPs are there to help only with those matters for which Parliament or central government is responsible.

An MP is unable to…

Nor can an MP…

your nearest Citizens' Advice Bureau will be able to guide you.

It takes several paragraphs before he gets round to grudgingly admitting that there are things he can do. And when he does, there's a striking Freudian slip:

Ways Pay could deal with problems of his constituents would be

Your tax-dollars at work.

Turning Japanese

I mentioned the other day my frustration with the way the Japanese tsunami is turning into horror-porn for the news networks. It's getting worse. Two of my favourite news programmes (Radio 4's Today and Channel 4 News) have flown out their 'top' anchors to report from Japan: James Naughtie and Jon Snow. I respect them both as broadcasting giants, but their presence in Japan says a lot more about the macho and hierarchical culture of their respective institutions than it does about the disaster.

More precisely, neither of these gentlemen speak Japanese. They can't do any research or story-chasing (neither can the BBC journalist moved hurriedly from North Korea to Japan). All they can do is rely on local talent and official statements made to the world's press in English. So all we're getting (at our expense, in the case of Naughtie) is the dubious pleasure of a familiar face/voice regurgitating facts and claims they haven't researched, in front of disaster footage.

Journalism 0, media 1.

Meanwhile, there's good news for the British economy. Saudi Arabia's dictatorship has sent troops to help the Bahraini dictatorship crush its oppressed protestors. The UK is one of SA's closest allies, and the Saudis have bought literally billions of pounds' worth of weaponry from the UK for their tiny armed forces. I always thought it was part of a little oil/weapons deal, but now those shiny guns are going to get some exercise at last. How proud our political leaders must be.