Sports fans among Guido’s co-conspirators will recall one of the biggest examples of leftie pearl-clutching in recent times: the commentariat’s outrage at the 2021 Saudi takeover of Premier League club Newcastle United. Labour MP Mike Amesbury raised the issue in the Commons: “Is the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund a right and proper and fit for purpose owner of Newcastle United?” Comrade Clive Efford added: “It may be one thing for the morally bankrupt Premier League to accept money from Saudi Arabia, but for the UK government to turn round and say it welcomes its investment is another thing.” Labour frontbencher Chi Onwurah intoned: “I think it’s important to say that in utterly condemning this atrocious, horrific massacre [executions in Saudi Arabia], I speak for many, many of my constituents and Newcastle United fans”. All perfectly fair points…
The woke elite of football punditry were quick to join the bandwagon. Always outspoken Labour Party supporter Gary Neville worried: “How were the Saudi Arabians accepted into the Premier League? We don’t know. There’s no transparency and there’s no independence.” Specifically criticising the Saudi acquisition, he said: “there will always be question marks about them”…
You’d be forgiven for wondering, then, why Labour and left aren’t sheikh-ing their fists at the impending Qatari takeover of Manchester United (Guido’s football insider sources say the deal may come to the crunch soon). It’s not clear what moral distinction there is to be drawn between the Saudis and the Qataris – both states have an authoritarian grizzly charge sheet. Officials are reportedly sceptical about the Qatari bid, according to Bloomberg, particularly given controversies surrounding bidder Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani. Once again, the leftie outrage bus is curiously selective…
Labour, which recently enforced a boycott of the Qatari World Cup on its MPs, is keeping a studied silence. As for the football commentariat, the fact that luminaries such as Lineker (£1.6 million) and Neville (£10 million) pocketed Qatari cash for their TV work surely cannot be relevant…
Ahead of his meetings with the country’s leaders, Boris told Laura Kuenessberg this morning that his trip to Saudi Arabia will involve discussing human rights concerns alongside asking for a dramatic increase in global oil supplies. The pressure comes after the country that could massively help alleviate the cost of living crisis executed 81 prisoners last weekend…
He told the pool:
“It’s not just a question of looking at the OPEC countries and what they can do to increase supply, though that is important, there’s also the issue of Emirati investment in UK wind farms – already huge – what more can they do? We need to double the pace of our construction of wind farms… When we look at the dependency the west has built up on Putin’s hydrocarbons, on Putin’s oil and gas we can see what a mistake that was.”
Speaking about Ukraine, the PM echoed Zelenskyy’s words on NATO, saying he “understands what he’s saying about NATO and the reality of the position, and everybody’s always said… there’s no way Ukraine is going to join NATO any time soon. But the decision about the future of Ukraine has got to be for the Ukrainian people.” He refused to be drawn on questions about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe…
Watch the pool in full here:
As Guido reported last week, there was one MP’s junket to Saudi Arabia which was conspicuously absent from the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Keith Vaz’s spokesman has said that the reason why the trip wasn’t declared was because Vaz paid for it all himself:
‘’The visit to Riyadh in December 2017 was as Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Yemen to meet the Yemeni President who was living there. The cost of the visit, accommodation and travel was borne by Mr Vaz personally. It was therefore not declarable.”
Vaz visited the Yemeni President and Foreign Minister, the Saudi Foreign Minister and the King Salman Relief Centre on his trip to Riyadh last December. Yet neither the Saudi or Yemeni Governments were generous enough to reach into their pockets to help him cover any of the cost of his trip. Vaz’s £77,379 salary is the sort of money the Saudis lose down the back of the sofa – after all they’ve shelled out over £170,000 to British MPs in the last 18 months. Poor old Keith must have really rubbed them up the wrong way for them to not offer him any declarable hospitality…
Vaz is not famously keen on putting his hand in his pocket for hotel expenses. Guido remembers another time Vaz forgot to make a declaration – “Vaz Didn’t Declare Hotels Used For Encounters With Young Men“. Is it possible that he has done the same again?
Dominic Raab says the Saudi account of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death is “not credible” and that people must be “held to account” over it. He won’t be drawn on what specific actions the UK could take…
Readers will have been following Guido’s series on those Tory and Labour MPs who have been enjoying the generous hospitality of the Saudi regime. However, keen Middle East observers may have noticed a conspicuous absence from Guido’s lists so far. Regular readers of the Saudi press or even the Daily Mail may recall that a certain Mr Keith Vaz also paid a visit to Saudi Arabia in December last year…
According to Arab News, Vaz visited the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center in the Saudi capital Riyadh, meeting with its General Supervisor Dr Abdullah Al-Rabeeah and making a statement praising the organisation. Vaz even brought up his trip in Parliament and added that he had met with the Saudi Foreign Minister. Yet the only foreign trip that Vaz has declared in his register of financial interests is a trip funded by the Indian Government in January this year – despite Vaz being deemed “too unwell” to face a parliamentary investigation. There is no trace of Vaz’s Saudi trip whatsoever. Will the Standards Committee have to open another investigation into Vaz before they’ve even concluded the first?
Yesterday Guido brought you the Tory MPs who have been the beneficiaries of Saudi largesse. Of course the Tories weren’t the only ones – there are numerous Labour MPs who have also enjoyed the generous hospitality of the House of Saud. Five Labour MPs enjoyed lavish all-expenses-paid trips to Saudi Arabia earlier this year. Who were the lucky five…
- Mike Gapes (Lab) Visit to “deepen understanding of Saudi Arabia.” 9-13 April 2018. Paid for by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Shura Council. Value: £8,762
- Kevan Jones (Lab) Visit to “deepen understanding of Saudi Arabia.” 8-13 April 2018. Paid for by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Value: £8,762
- John Spellar (Lab) Visit to “deepen understanding of Saudi Arabia.” 9-13 April 2018. Paid for by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Shura Council. Value: £8,762
- Paul Williams (Lab) Visit to “deepen understanding of Saudi Arabia.” 9-13 April 2018. Paid for by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Shura Council. Value: £8,762
- John Woodcock (Ind, formerly Lab) Visit to “deepen understanding of Saudi Arabia.” 9-13 April 2018. Paid for by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Shura Council. Value: £8,762
John Spellar has since interrupted Emily Thornberry in a recent Commons debate to object to her opposition to the UK selling planes to Saudi Arabia, without declaring his interest. The total value of the MPs’ junckets came in at a cool £43,810. It’s safe to say that they got better treatment than tortured and murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi…
