RUTHFULLY YOURS

* A “Who’s Who” of Arab dictators are invited to tomorrow’s British royal wedding, at the advice of the British Foreign office. But Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are not invited for the “crime” of overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

* Invitation to Syrian ambassador “borders on the grotesque”

Bahrain’s Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, with Prince Charles in 2004

Update:

Within the last few minutes, the invitation to the Syrian ambassador has been withdrawn – the first time in living memory that an invitation to a royal wedding has been withdrawn the day before the wedding. However, the fact that he was invited is still a source of shame, and the points in the dispatch below remain relevant, in my view.

INVITATION “BORDERS ON THE GROTESQUE”

By Tom Gross

The revelation last night that the Syrian ambassador to London, Dr Sami Khiyami, has been invited to tomorrow’s British royal wedding, while former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have been excluded from the guest list, “borders on the grotesque,” said a number of British MPs.

Other former British prime ministers, including John Major and Margaret Thatcher, have been invited, as has David Cameron. (All surviving former prime ministers attended Prince Charles’s marriage to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.)

St Andrews, the Scottish university where Prince William met his bride-to-be Kate Middleton, has been given large donations by the Syrian regime.

Seven more royal tyrants or their envoys from around the world are on tomorrow’s royal guest list despite their records of repression and torture.

Among them are Prince Mohamed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said of Oman, and Bahrain’s crown prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa.

All three leaders have overseen the shooting dead of pro-democracy campaigners in their countries in recent weeks, and the Saudi leader has sent paramilitary units into neighboring Bahrain to help round up and torture pro-democracy campaigners their.

ANOTHER BAHRAINI BLOGGER DIES IN POLICE CUSTODY

Last week another Bahraini blogger was beaten to death in police custody. This morning four more democracy activists in Bahrain were sentenced to death.

(It seems that Bahrain’s crown prince is too busy overseeing the continuing repression at home to attend. This week he informed the British royal family that he doesn’t have time to go to the wedding.)

Other despots invited tomorrow include Sheikh Ahmad Hmoud Al-Sabah of Kuwait and the Emir of Qatar.

Meanwhile, one of the few countries in the world that the British Queen has refused to visit during her almost 60 year reign is Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy. Her royal advisers, including those at the Britain foreign office, have persuaded her not to.

You may wish to draw your own conclusions as to why they won’t let a British Monarch visit a Jewish country.