On a Saturday morning in February, as shoppers loaded up their DIY items in Cricklewood retail park, North London, a large banner of Mohammed bin Salman accompanied by the words ‘war criminal’ was being hoisted on to the side of a red double-decker bus.
‘Is that the Saudi Prince?’ asked a man. ‘Are you here for Yemen?’ The protest, the activists concurred, was against the planned state visit of the 32-year-old Saudi crown prince and defence minister. The bus would be driven to Marble Arch to attract publicity and ‘wake up Britain’.
