Russians or Saudis

rick_chasey

Without wanting to sound all labour-voter-as-of-2003, a lot of this revolves around oil.

US shale revolution is a real challenge for both Russia and Saudi.

To a greater or lesser degree, the contract of natural resources revenues to keep people placated and prop up the authoritarians mean a consistently lower oil price is a real challenge.

john80

Maybe it time the UK started to have a bit of a tit for tat scheme. We could do a special prison system to match other countries standards filled with rats, ritual beatings and disease. We could then go into the criminal justice system and find a UAE citizen who has committed a crime and then we bang them up indefinitely for a crime and supply no evidence. Speeding, parking offences, all are fair game. Lets face with when kings nephew is banged up in our new rat prison for a couple of months they will maybe take the UK governments call a bit more serious.

Maybe this could be a race to the bottom on punishment. Thailand jails a UK citizen for minor possession of drugs we go out and find a Thai citizen up for a similar charge in the UK and we bang them up to make it even. Get jailed for kissing your wife in public in the Arab world and we just bang up some Arabs seen holding hands in Kensington. I mean lets face it if their country is so great why do they need special western laws when their laws are good enough.

Hypocrit I hear you call when we are running a two tier justice system. The response is we are only being as hypocritical as you.

robert88

Shirley Basso wrote:

orraloon wrote:

Shirley Basso wrote:

orraloon wrote:

Anyway, setting aside the fishbot for the moment.

Russians. Saudis. And now add to the list Emiratis.

Jeremy Hunt says he’s doing all he can to assist in the Matthew Hedges jailing case. So that’ll be square root of f all then? Let me think, one jailed Brit vs mega arms sales, mega arms sales vs one jailed Brit, hmmm...

In fairness, he did managed to get the pardon.

We-ell, the bloke is outtathere, fair enough. Whether Jeremy Rhyming-Slang had much involvement? Maybe UK Gummint just put a bit of a sweetener on a current arms contract, knowwhadimean? One example current deal picked at random: https://www.baesystems.com/en/article/m ... f-16-fleet

Oh quite. I am not saying HOW they did it, but they did it nonetheless.

It's funny how someone sentenced to life in prison can be pardoned overnight. I wonder if the UAE actually wanted to make an example of him to dissuade others and that his specific crime wasn't actually that bad, although based on the title of his degree, he was skating on thin ice. It seems quiet a few of these totalitarian states are able to release people all of a sudden as if the crime had never been committed.

Unfortunately it's not as if the crime had never been committed because he's been pardoned; the verdict has not been reversed.

That means he has a criminal record as a convicted spy - good luck with that on his visa applications.

As for how they did it, they probably called in Tom Hanks. He did a great job in 'Bridge of Spies' ISTR.

DeVlaeminck

Robert88 wrote:

Unfortunately it's not as if the crime had never been committed because he's been pardoned; the verdict has not been reversed.

That means he has a criminal record as a convicted spy - good luck with that on his visa applications.

R.

It's going to make it difficult to work but presumably he'll have an MI6 pension.

slowmart

Rick Chasey wrote:

Without wanting to sound all labour-voter-as-of-2003, a lot of this revolves around oil.

US shale revolution is a real challenge for both Russia and Saudi.

To a greater or lesser degree, the contract of natural resources revenues to keep people placated and prop up the authoritarians mean a consistently lower oil price is a real challenge.

Add the perception from the Saudi and UAE ruling families that the west aren’t reliable allies means a significant shift in strategic relationships. If you look at the reaction from Saudi allies to the state murder of a journalist and then compare that to Russia’s support of Assad in Syria showcases Putins will to support allies through thick and thin. Compound this reaction of the US, UK and France to the Arab spring and the overthrowing of Mubarak in Egypt which until that point was considered a stable regional and strategic partner.

It’s also being reported that Boris was a compounding factor in elongating the whole affair with the UAE when he was in charge of the Foreign office and his damaging impact on the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case.

tangled_metal

I think I read the same news article. Was it about the soft power of UAE? About how UK and UAE are about level in influence now?

slowmart

@ TM Yes.

You have to admire the UAE governments pivoting of their economy away from oil towards finance and tourism. The cultural transformation is occurring at a slower pace. That said it’s never been about where you’ve been, it’s all about where you’re going which is important. And on that note the UK & UAE have different trajectories.

Pross

john80 wrote:

Maybe it time the UK started to have a bit of a tit for tat scheme. We could do a special prison system to match other countries standards filled with rats, ritual beatings and disease. We could then go into the criminal justice system and find a UAE citizen who has committed a crime and then we bang them up indefinitely for a crime and supply no evidence. Speeding, parking offences, all are fair game. Lets face with when kings nephew is banged up in our new rat prison for a couple of months they will maybe take the UK governments call a bit more serious.

Maybe this could be a race to the bottom on punishment. Thailand jails a UK citizen for minor possession of drugs we go out and find a Thai citizen up for a similar charge in the UK and we bang them up to make it even. Get jailed for kissing your wife in public in the Arab world and we just bang up some Arabs seen holding hands in Kensington. I mean lets face it if their country is so great why do they need special western laws when their laws are good enough.

Hypocrit I hear you call when we are running a two tier justice system. The response is we are only being as hypocritical as you.

What makes you think the other country would be bothered? It's not as though they treat their citizens any differently to foreigners so your 'two tier' thing doesn't really work.