Cherie Blair has risked offending one of Britain’s closest allies in the Middle East by highlighting the “appalling image” of Saudi Arabia and saying it is seen as treating women not as equals but “some sort of other”. The Prime Minister’s wife, speaking at an event to promote Muslim women in public life, made her remarks in front of the Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki al-Faisal. She made a plea to change the “perception of Islam being backward-looking, oppressive – somehow not as good as Western Christianity”.