British Media Commentary on Saudi Arabia & the Oil Price CrisisUKWatch.net - 5 Jul 2008Introduction The past few months have seen an upsurge in comment on Saudi Arabia in the British media at a similar rate to the upsurge in oil prices, the current cause of the country being in the news. While previous Arab Media Watch studies found that portrayals of Saudi Arabia were “often negative and sometimes openly hostile” – particularly at the time of the Saudi royal visit to Britain in November 2007, and the BAE arms deal – the current spike in media attention has a far more reasoned character to it. For this report, AMW monitored all the British national daily newspapers (except the Financial Times), as well as the Evening Standard. Blame Saudi Out of a total of 20 editorials and commentaries, just five contained comments that seemed to place blame for the current oil price crisis on Saudi Arabia. The Daily Telegraph’s executive foreign editor Con Coughlin argued that “as things stand, protecting their precious reserves, rather than providing the world with cheaper oil, appears to be their main priority” (20 June 2008). The newspaper’s international business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard described the visit of President Bush to the country in January “to plead for higher oil output,” only to be “politely rebuffed” (16 May 2008). Of Bush’s subsequent visit in May, Evans-Pritchard wrote: “If the Saudis deny help once again, they risk incalculable damage to their strategic alliance with Washington. The price of crude has rocketed by over $30 a barrel since that last fruitless meeting.” He continued: “The US-Saudi tango has been on thin ice ever since the terrorist attacks of 9/11?Riyadh is giving no ground?The Saudis have let their output fall from 9.5m to 8.5m bpd over the last two years.” A few days later (20 May 2008), the Times’ US editor and assistant editor Gerard Baker wrote that following this meeting, “the helpful chaps at the House of Saud duly agreed to ramp up output by a few hundred thousand barrels a day.” He described this as “a drop in the tanker of Saudi,” which “to nobody’s great surprise?had no effect whatsoever.” However, Baker cast doubt on Bush’s efforts, suggesting they were “more of a political gesture than a meaningful policy initiative.” The Times’ chief foreign affairs commentator Bronwen Maddox labelled the Opec summit in Jeddah “a Saudi show, to deliver a Saudi message” (25 June 2008), adding: “Before Sunday’s meeting, King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz al-Saud said that the kingdom was resolved to prevent oil prices from rising ‘in an unjustified and abnormal manner’, while announcing an increase in production too small to have any such impact.” Don’t Blame Saudi Saudi Arabia, as the world’s largest producer, naturally loomed large in recent coverage of the oil price crisis. Shadow business secretary Alan Duncan noted in the Daily Telegraph that it was “the only country with enough capacity and flexibility to turn on the taps?” (27 May 2008). However, “life isn’t so simple,” he continued, explaining the relevance of various grades of oil and the corresponding different markets, concluding that “just turning on Opec’s taps would not necessarily solve the current problem.” In fact, he issued a word of warning: “?watch carefully the unbridled folly of those such as the Lib Dems who want to gang up on Saudi Arabia. Those same naifs who delighted at the fall of the Shah seem to want the same ghastly political outcome in Saudi Arabia- and the $300 oil that would come with it.” The Telegraph’s executive foreign editor Con Coughlin argued that the country is working to capacity (20 June 2008): “?the Saudis announced their intention to increase production by another 500,000 barrels per day, which will bring total production to 9.7 million barrels – the kingdom’s highest ever level. And that is about the upper limit of what the Saudis can produce for any sustained period.” However, “the Saudis will only produce more oil if they believe it is in their interests to do so,” Coughlin added, somewhat contradictorily. An Increase in Production Won’t Help Independent columnist Dominic Lawson exonerated Saudi Arabia (and Opec) from blame in the current price crisis, writing that “far from operating as a restrictive cartel?12 of the 13 members of Opec are pumping out oil at maximum capacity” (23 May 2008). The Saudis, being the 13th member, “are already producing well in excess of their official Opec quota.” He also noted that an announced production increase by 300,000 barrels per day “had no effect in halting the upward rush of the market price.” In another article (17 June 2008), Lawson stated that “oil makes hypocrites of us all,” noting the overarching presence of politics in the recent high-level visits to Saudi Arabia by George Bush, Ban Ki-Moon and Gordon Brown. “The strange thing is that there isn’t an absolute shortage of oil in the markets,” he added. “There’s already a sufficient amount of the black stuff to go round to meet current levels of demand, as the Saudis have wearily insisted often enough over the past few months.” Therefore, Lawson concluded, King Abdullah’s pledge to raise output “is the purest politics, simply to get the weight of the world’s opprobrium off his kaffiyeh. I don’t blame the King, however.” An editorial in the Independent (16 June 2008) suggested a few reasons for the oil price crisis: “There is little doubt that speculation is playing some part in pushing up the price of oil to an unprecedented $140 a barrel. Yet the fact that inventories have been at normal levels suggests this is not the driving force behind price rises. Growing demand is the far more likely culprit.” However, there was some suspicion felt about the Saudi role: “It is often asserted that Saudis still have vast oil reserves. But there is no independently verified proof of this. We have no choice but to rely on what they choose to tell us.” Nonetheless, the editorial cast doubt on the possibility of bringing the oil price down by increasing Saudi production. “How long before our political leaders return to Saudi and its Opec allies to plead for more? And what will be the political price extracted for this?” asked the Independent, adding that “it is ridiculous for Western governments to tell Saudi Arabia and other oil producers how much they ought to pump out of the ground. The debate ought to be about how best to break our economic dependence on oil.” An editorial in the same newspaper the following week (23 June 2008) likewise detected the overarching presence of politics in Brown’s attendance of the oil summit in Jeddah: “In attending the Saudi King’s energy summit at the weekend, the Prime Minister colluded in a publicity stunt of the first order?The clear intention was to convince hard-pressed British consumers that he feels our pain on energy prices and is doing his level best to bring them down.” The editorial apportioned blame to several factors: “The sky-rocketing price of energy in Britain stems at least as much from his own government’s tax take and the energy companies’ profits as it does from the vagaries of the Saudi oil flow. If production is an issue, then the Iraq war is at least as much to blame. A prime ministerial call for national belt-tightening would be a more honest and dignified approach.” Independent columnist Michael Savage cast doubt on increased production as the solution to the oil price crisis (21 May 2008). “Recent events have shown that there are problems with the assumption that Opec could ease the oil price by turning on the taps,” he wrote, noting the “little impact” of an announced production increase. The Evening Standard’s business and financial commentator Anthony Hilton agreed (23 May 2008): “It is years since any new oil field was found which could deliver more than one million barrels a day and currently the world consumes more than 85 million barrels a day. Put like that, the increase in production of 300,000 barrels which President Bush got out of the Saudis last week was hardly worth the paper used for the press release.” The Times’ international business editor Carl Mortishead had a different reason for doubting the effectiveness of an increase in Saudi oil production (23 June 2008): “The truth is that the world doesn’t need the extra Saudi crude. It’s the wrong sort of oil – too sulphurous and viscous for refiners trying to produce more petrol, diesel and jet fuel.” An editorial in the same newspaper also cast doubt, citing global decline in supplies as the reason (20 April 2008): “Even Saudi Arabia, the desert kingdom that sits on 25 per cent of the world’s known hydrocarbon reserves, can no longer be relied on to turn on the taps, even if it wanted to. Oil is also becoming progressively harder to find and more expensive to refine.” Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie had little interest in production quotas, instead noting the reduction in traffic on British roads due to “the Shell tanker strike plus the staggering cost of petrol” (19 June 2008). He added that “we do have something to thank the Saudis for – we can get to work quicker.” Statements & Predictions Other commentators went less into the mechanisms of global oil markets and production, and instead made broader, gloomier statements and predictions about the future of oil, with particular regard to Saudi Arabia. However, a few commentators still saw a boom time for the country. Cause for Concern “Oil does terrible things to a nation, breaking the link between taxation and revenue, and so encouraging corruption,” wrote Daily Telegraph leader writer and Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan (30 April 2008). “Look at the Gulf States…unfortunate enough to be sitting on the stuff.” The Guardian’s industrial correspondent Terry Macalister also sounded a note of alarm for Saudi Arabia, whose economy “and political stability” are “tied heavily to crude revenue” (20 June 2008). Despite the billions in extra revenue, Saudi leaders are “worried the long-term impact of high prices will be to cause conflict with western countries that militarily and politically support the House of Saud,” he added. “The kingdom’s rulers are also fearful that high prices will lead to lower demand as users switch to other fuels.” Similarly, the Independent’s diplomatic editor Anne Penketh wrote that “it appears the Saudis are just as worried that record prices?could dampen growth in the industrialised West and lower demand, which would in turn hurt the kingdom” (16 June 2008). “Saudi Arabia is keenly aware of the political and economic effect of the oil market on the upwards spiral of food prices, and contributed $500m to the World Food Programme,” she added. The Times’ international business editor Carl Mortishead described a situation in which having oil is not enough, writing that “the price of natural gas in the Gulf has soared amid shortages and increased global demand” (19 May 2008). This is to blame for “the oil-rich Gulf states?planning to import coal?because, for the first time, the Gulf states are beginning to feel the burden of the soaring cost of fossil fuels.” Cashing In A couple of commentators saw a more positive side to Saudi Arabia’s current state, if only for its own national interest. Patrick Bishop in the Daily Mail focused on the wealth already accrued by the country (16 May 2008): “Despite their mind-boggling extravagance, they remain monstrously minted thanks to a 70-year oil boom that has sometimes faltered but never collapsed. Those who have succeeded in getting close to them have done pretty well, too.” The Times’ City columnist Edward Fennell agreed, writing that “whatever else may be happening in the rest of the world, the Gulf states are riding high on global demand for their oil,” thanks to “profits sky-high and confidence that this will continue for the foreseeable future” (12 June 2008).
Mike Marqusee’s Top Ten BooksUKWatch.net - 5 Jul 2008A Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon Once you get accustomed to the invented prose idiom, the groundedness of this epic takes a grip. The architecture of the trilogy embodies a big (Marxist) picture of historical development, but it’s built out of emotional intimacy and physical immediacy. The conclusion of Sunset Song, the second volume in the trilogy, with its invocation of the sufferings of the first World War, moved me as much as anything I’ve encountered in British fiction. Poor Things by Alasdair Gray A wildly inventive yet in its own way utterly logical fictional confection. What’s great is that the bravura assemblage of voices, styles and narrative gimmicks all tend to a purpose; they’re not only immense fun, they’re fused and directed by Gray’s compassion for aspirant humanity and his contempt for power and hierarchy. This is a wonderfully partisan novel. Beyond a Boundary by CLR James This is not only by some way the best book ever written about the sport of cricket, it’s also a wonderful piece of inventive prose artistry, genre-busting in its mix of memoir, history, theory and political polemic. It ranges from colonial Trinidad to industrial Lancashire by way of ancient Greece and Victorian England — all swept along by the radical verve of James’ intelligence. He saw cricket in context, shaped by and giving shape to the conflicts of the world in which it was played. James took cricket seriously — perhaps too seriously — as an art form, and he was demanding in his judgements, which have a terrific elan, even when they’re wrong. Be warned: cricket’s most eminent Marxist has a surprising soft spot for the English public school ethos! A Wet Afternoon by Sadat Hassan Manto Toba Tek Singh — set in an asylum for the insane on the newly drawn India-Pakistan border in 1947 — is the great fictional comment on the tragedy of partition. Manto (who was also a screenwriter and journalist) wrote stories in a plain-spoken Urdu about prostitutes, dissolute intellectuals, compromised small businessmen and imprisoned housewives. He’s a sour but compassionate observer, and he leaves the big judgements up to the reader. Even in translation, this jaded epicurean with a stubborn moral core speaks with a distinctive voice. He died in 1955, at the age of 42. Leon Trotsky trilogy by Isaac Deutscher: The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, The Prophet Outcast You don’t have to be a Trotskyist to derive pleasure and enrichment from Deutscher’s beautifully written biographical trilogy. This is more than Trotsky’s story — which itself is one of the most dramatic, and tragic, of the 20th century — it’s a supple study in the rhythms of political and historical change. It’s clear and fluent and deeply considered and introduces you painlessly to a wide range of people, places, ideas and debates. The Polish-born Deutscher was himself an anti-Stalinist Marxist, a brave and independent intellect, whose essay The Non-Jewish Jew I’d also recommend. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry As Indira Gandhi’s ‘emergency’ grips the country, four characters — a Parsee widow, a middle class student, and two lower caste tailors — find their lives squashed together in a Bombay flat. Among other things, this book is a chronicle of the cruelties of that era, and provides a much sharper commentary on Indian politics than is found in more celebrated novels. The method here is unapologetically, and masterfully, naturalistic. The suffering in this book comes in many forms, is at times unbearable, but is always concrete and credible; so are the moments of hope or relief, buoyed up by the humour and idiosyncracy of the characters. Out Stealing Horses by Per Pettersen It’s hard to describe how and why Pettersen’s novel becomes so deeply engrossing. Like his previous works, this one shifts between past trauma and present uncertainties, and accumulates its insights, builds its very tangible world, sentence by sentence. In Out Stealing Horses an old man retires to a cottage in northern Norway and reflects on the events of a summer holiday some fifty years earlier. As the story unwinds, the long-term effects of these events become apparent. Pettersen refuses easy closures. His narrative is mostly close-up, but there are also sidelong glances at Norwegian history, at the Nazi occupation, at class and poverty. Despite the subject matter, and the real sadness, it’s anything but glum. When I read this book, I really felt I was seeing — feeling — the world afresh. Walden, or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau In 1845, Thoreau beat a retreat from the polite society of Concord, Massachusetts, to live in the woods by Walden Pond. The book is the record of his experiment: to see how many of the ‘necessities’ of civilisation we can really do without. But it’s more: it embodies an attempt to live fully and deliberately, to find a deep meaning in daily life. He didn’t go the woods just to prove it could be done, but to re-appropriate himself, to live a more authentic life than the one offered us, ready-packaged, off the shelf. Thoreau was one of the first critics of what we now call consumerism, which he sees as destructive of the environment and the human spirit. The book is full of wry humour, as Thoreau mocks himself and his society, and the prose has an un-showy solidity, like skilled carpentry. King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild There’s not much in modern history that exceeds the depravity of the ‘Congo Free State’, the vast territory appropriated by the Belgian King in 1885 as a kind of private enterprise free-fire zone. In the end, millions were killed, millions more mutilated, tortured, enslaved, by a small, sophisticated European business coterie. This is the story of that atrocity, but also of the global campaign protesting against it, a forerunner of the modern human rights movement. So among the genocidal villains and amoral rogues are genuine heroes: Hochschild makes sure neither are forgotten. Complete Writings by William Blake I take Blake at his own estimation: as a prophet. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a startling act of literary and intellectual insurgency. The conclusion of the epic illustrated book Jerusalem something for which here is no parallel in English poetry. Blake struck deep into me when I was a teenager and I’ve gone back to him repeatedly over the years, each time finding more than I expected. The ‘gentle mystic’ is largely a creation of literary legend; Blake was ferocious: “half friendship is the bitterest enmity.” The revolutionary republican prosecuted a kind of one-man ‘culture war’ for much of his life. Result: poverty and obscurity. Don’t worry about the details of Blake’s weird invented mythology; there’s more than enough that’s arrestingly transparent to compensate for the obscure bits.
Poor get hit as business walks freeUKWatch.net - 5 Jul 2008Even as the government admits to a 10 billion black hole in its finances caused by its gifting of tax back to businesses to plug their pensions holes, it looks set to U-turn on its policy to close corporation tax loopholes costing the exchequer tens of billions more every year. Threats from major UK companies to relocate overseas or into tax havens has prompted a move to revise corporation tax rules following high-profile complaints that the UK?s taxation levels are significantly higher than elsewhere in the EU. Pharmaceuticals giant Shire recently announced it would relocate to Ireland to take advantage of the low tax regime there. While UK law stipulates a basic corporation tax of 28%, corporations on average pay closer to 22%, with some of the largest paying significantly under this figure. A simplification of the rules mooted by the treasury last year would have closed loopholes which at present allow huge levels of tax evasion. The UK has recently come under fire for itself maintaining more tax havens under British rule than anywhere else in the world, something which campaign groups argue has directly led to tens of thousands of deaths. Corporate tax avoidance is thought to cost 25 billion every year ? more than twice the amount these major companies were gifted by the government in tax breaks to allow them to refill the pension pots they themselves had emptied. In two years, the same amount would pay for the total line of credit currently being offered to major banks as part of the credit crunch – 50 billion is being underwritten in loans to maintain the flow of money through the economy. The same banks, along with a host of other companies, are already benefiting from government handouts this year to the tune of 10 billion, as they pour money into pension funds to keep them afloat. This money, rather than coming from profits or business chiefs who were the investors who caused the problem, is being paid in from taxes. Pension deficits have soared by more than 100bn in the past year, the Pension Protection Fund said recently. Meanwhile, as the Treasury struggles to maintain its financial balance, fears are rising that the pensioners themselves could be at risk of falling prey to the 10p tax band changes which the government have proposed. Up to 420,000 pensioners with small private pensions of up to 1,000 a year could start having to pay tax of 200 a year from next April, under new plans ? potentially raising around 80 million a year.
