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Double Standards on the BBC Chelsea Saudi Lebedev Campaign Trail

All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.

How else did disaster capitalist Roman Abramovich get rich so quickly in 90s Russia?

Favouritism happens in life. In families, at work, in hospitals, at school, in sport, in fashion, on the news, in music, in court, at the bank, on your phone, on the street and in politics.

Chelsea football club is subject to sanctions due to the war in Ukraine, but Saudi can attack Yemen with no consequences for its club Newcastle United.

At least some people are prepared to talk about it.

I even read that Saudi were prepared to sell Newcastle for a loss just to be able to buy Chelsea now.

What does this all mean?

It looks like the Saudi Government has spent a lot of money on PR and is pretending an independent Saudi Media consortium is bidding for Chelsea.

In 2017 Crown Prince MBS arranged for many of his family members to be tortured under the Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh. They were forced to hand over their international investments.

One international investment that the Saudis hold is a stake in the Independent, an online newspaper co-owned by Lebedev Holdings.

Jim Waterson of the Guardian has reported on this and very suspiciously so has BBC Today Programme man Amol Rajan, who I regard as as much of a security risk as Lord Evgeny Lebedev.

Of course Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party is a big fan of Russian and Saudi cash and till recently also of Chinese money.

I think it’s virtue signalling by a majority of the UK population in a way that is no different to what happened to large corporations straight after the murder of George Floyd in America in 2020.

Suddenly Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were saying that Black Lives Matter.

For some reason the Times thinks this is a good photo to publish. Who are these women? Do they really think Xi Jinping is going to take a break from torturing Uiygurs to reprimand MBS for killing Yemenis or Putin for killing white people? Is that how they think it works?

China were responsible for bringing an end to the Sri Lanka civil war by supplying the government with cash and weapons and telling them to end it.

Politics is a dirty sport. Grab the good times while you can.