*Casting agency offers £20 per head for extras to stand outside Downing Street during Amir's visit

Struggling actors were offered £20 a head to stand outside Downing Street in a fake protest against a visit by Qatar's Amir to the UK Tuesday.

Casting agency 'Extra People' put out the job advert for what it called an ‘Anti-Qatar event’.
The job description said: "This is NOT a film or TV production, The company are looking for a large group of people to fill space outside Downing street during the visit of the president of Quatar (sic). This is an ANTI-Qatar event – You will not have to do or say anything, they just want to fill space."
It went on: "Rate: £20 – we appreciate this is a low rate, however it is only 1-1.5 hours work."
Extra People refused to reveal who was behind the fake demo, timed to coincide with His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani arriving for talks with British Prime Minister Theresa May.
But for more than a year Qatar has been the subject of a diplomatic and transport blockade by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt.
It’s thought that extras were also paid to stand outside parliament on Monday when the Amir arrived there to make a speech.
‘Demonstrators’ waved placards referring to allegations Qatar paid up to $1bn to terrorist groups as a ransom for 28 members of a royal hunting party kidnapped in Iraq.
Billboard adverts have also appeared across London showing a picture of the Amir with the words: "Should they be welcome in the UK? Then why is the UK government rolling out the red carpet for the Qatar Emir?"
As well as the country’s opponents in the Middle East, the finger of suspicion for the fake demo was also pointed at a Qatari exile living in London.
Khalid al-Hail has previously organised a ‘Qatari opposition’ conference in London featuring paid speakers such as Paddy Ashdown, Iain Duncan Smith and the Saudi cheerleader MP, Daniel Kawczynski.
More recently he was linked to a sports conference at the Four Seasons Hotel, Tower Hill, which aimed to strip Qatar of the 2022 World Cup.
In the past there have been claims that extras were paid to protest against the Qatari government at events in Germany.
Tuesday a Qatari diplomat pointed the finger at the Saudi-led alliance for what had happened.
He said: "The blockading countries have a long history of using paid protestors to try and discredit those who do not agree with their views.
"Despite their latest attempts to spread lies about Qatar, the visit of His Highness the Amir has further strengthened the historic and strategic partnership between Qatar and the UK."
Later there were no protestors outside Number 10 when the Amir arrived for talks with Theresa May.
As the motorcade swept through the gates of Downing Street there were plenty of tourists holding up cameras, but no sign of any placards.
When Khalid al-Hail posted an anti-Qatar tweet, @MoHaMeD replied: ‘Khalid, today everyone knows who’s behind the fake tweets. Everyone knows that you are hiring people to protest and who’s paying for you."
Extra People later claimed it was contacted by a PR agency called ‘Neptune PR Ltd’ asking for 500 people to stand outside Downing Street.
But when it realised that it involved a fake protest it pulled out telling would-be extras: "Earlier today you received an availability enquiry for the Downing Street project. On reflection and discussion, we do not feel Extra People should be involved in such a project and have decided not to proceed any further with booking artists for it."
Neptune PR Tuesday denied any dealings with Extra People.
Its Twitter page was only set up this month and has very limited followers.
Its website domain was registered on April 23, 2018, but the site does not load so there is no information about the company available.