Riyadh - (As Mes): Saudi Arabia is to expel four UK embassy staff in a tit-for-tat reltalliation of four Rusian envoys being booted out of London and amid the furor over Moscow's refusal to extradite the spy suspected of Alexander Litvinenko's murder.
All four men have ben told they must leave Riyadh within 10 days or face immediate flogging, amputation and other indignities.
In London UK Foreign Secretary David Milipede said he was "totally gobsmacked" by what he called a "completely daftass" move which political analysts say is connected to the British outing of former Saudi ambasador to the US Prince Bandar as the eminece grise behing the Litvineko death plot.
In Moscow Russian President Vladimir Sputum said the crisi had been a long time coming and that outing Bandar was a serious business.
This week four Russian embassy staff were expelled from London after the Anbti-terror cops proived they were getting their espionage orders from Prince Bandar.
The move was sen as provocative and partially conected to Putin's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoy, Bandar's rent boy and the procurer of the Plutonium 210 which ende up being snorted along with a gramme of cocaine by the luckles Litvineko.
In Riyadh a spokesman for the Ministry for Terror said today: "The position of the Brown government is not based on British common sense and reasoning.
"So neither is ours.
"But we've got the oil and they haven't."
In London Grodon Brown's official mouthpiece told reporters that the Prime Monster was trying to think up something to tell voters who might be a bit puzzled about all this Bandar stuff.
Lord Levy is 69.
