Shun the Sheikh

SHEIKH Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai’s leader, has acted abominably towards his children and at least one of his six wives.

But we in the West are silenced by fear of retaliation. It is one thing to demonstrate noisy outrage against Donald Trump or for # MeToo protagonists to hurl their indignation only at those who are safe to attack, but quite another to criticise the Arab world.

Some years ago, speaking to a member of the Royal Military Police suffering PTSD, his condition was caused not by military actions in the Middle East, where he served, but by the extreme cruelties he witnessed towards women in the region.

Sheikh Mohammed placed electronic surveillance upon, and ordered the kidnap of, his adult daughters seeking freedom, then held them against their will. His actions are those of a vile criminal.

our Foreign and Commonwealth office, by interfering with the investigation initiated by Cambridgeshire Police, is guilty of facilitating a criminal. Criminal charges should be brought against the Foreign office, or at least those who were in charge of it at the time.

Sheikh Mohammed — horse racing’s biggest owner — should also be ‘run out of town’ by the citizens of Newmarket and the uK. We can have no more of him, nor his money.

PHILIP HODSON, Newmarket, Suffolk. FoR STEPHEN GLoVER (Mail) to blame Tony Blair and the late Robin Cook for the problems surrounding the ruler of Dubai is odious.

It is obvious all British governments — Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and now Johnson — have turned a blind eye to the excesses of dictatorial countries in the Middle East, particularly their medieval attitudes to women.

However, Blair’s first government was excellent and laid the foundations for a long period of growth and increased prosperity.

Problems in education were tackled. The second Gulf War was, in retrospect, badly handled by both UK and U.S. governments. Blair has rightly received criticism.

He also should be criticised for allowing Gordon Brown to increase public spending to unsustainable levels, so that when the 2008 financial crisis came (to be fair, not due to Brown) we were vulnerable.

However, the country re-elected Blair/Brown three times, a record current Labour leaders, if not Conservatives, would be delighted to have.

ray PHilPoTT, norwich.