House of Saud?

IronGiant

That's based on estimates, the Saudi's are notorious for keeping the state of their oil fields as secret as they can.  

Selling weapons to Saudi Arabia is a risky thing to do, especially if the Saudi Royal Family is overthrown and there's an Islamic Revolution similar to Iran's. But a lot of things have to go wrong for that to happen. Some Tories only care about money and don't care about where it comes from.

Enki

@Enki The Labour comments have been that fawning to the Suadis is not unique to the current government so continually trying to blame everything on the Tories just makes you look like you have a massive chip on your shoulder.    Sure the Tories are the only ones that can currently do anything, but in reality they are just maintaining the satus quo.

alan280170

If others want hold on to fanboyism/fangirlism politics, that's entirely their prerogative.  That's why I mentioned Gove and my nod of approval, totally negated but there we are, thats rigid political doctrine; bring out the  flagellants.

Enki

Interesting debate, but if HMG get's some morals, they won't be trading with any other country.

thefragile

Her Majesty’s Government is Conservative, if they don’t like at the crease don’t volunteer to bat, no one forced them to stand.  Are they to be bowled ping pongs balls, because their innings is just not fair with the red hard ball?

Member 581642

Regardless of what Government is in power, the continued relationship reached gross parody status when they were elected to head the UN Human Rights Panel, whilst simultaneously sentencing a boy (17 when arrested) to Death By Crucifixion for attending a pro democracy protest.

However I struggle to understand what principles of the relationship morally trump the principle of sentencing a juvenile to crucifixion and beaheading....... However considering the Tories wanted to withdraw from the ECHR until very recently, I'm not surprised they've continued the relationship with a deafening silence on Saudi's Human rights past and future.

alan280170

I believe we have a special relationship with another country that regularly executes a large number of working class black youths. Lets not get hung up on the method of execution

robel

lol

thefragile

Enki

You need to be clear on this, America as a whole doesn't have capital punishment, it is only some states (relatively few I believe)..... Obviously its doesn't make one practice less barbaric than the other, especially when some of these states in America are repeatedly cocking up their execution methods.

On the flip side there is less of an eye for an eye mentality in the US, the prevalence of this in Saudi Arabia leads to such examples as Saudi Employers cutting Employees arms off as punishment (yes it did happen)..

Its also worth bearing in mind that the US isn't the Head of the UN Human Rights Council