jim waterson, got any thoughts on this — bein, beout, newcastle?to follow if you are not sort of entwined in the regional politics and it is very, very difficult. i spent so long on this and even i struggle with it. but basically you end up with a story where the thing blocking a takeover of a premier league club appears to be more about who is paying for the television rights than about the human rights in the country that is connected to the purchases. so, we have a fit and proper persons test, but i think with all of this it comes back to — there is no better place in the world to come to than the uk if you want to buy an institution to improve your reputation. whether it's a football club or a media outlet, that's what we come back to. and ultimately the saudis have money on a scale that very few british investors and backers could dream of having. sanan vakilfrom chatham house, how typical is all of this — everything we have talked today about the way the gulf states use the media is an form of soft power, asjim was saying? well, as we were ta

jim waterson, media editor at the guardian, just give us a reminder which newspapers and tv channels examples, the london evening standard and the independent which is now online only. they were both owned by lord lebedev who is a russian, originally from russia. he sold stakes and owns a third of stakes to mysterious saudi businessmen who through a slightly complicated series of offshore accounts that turned out to be, in the eyes of the british government, connected to the saudi state. it is worth noting that the independent made it very clear that they haven�*t had any editorial compromising positions as a result of this, that they feel they are able to do theirjob as well. but you�*ve got to ask, what is it that the saudis are buying when they buy a third of these quite prominent british outlets? and before we answer that, can ijust interrupt and ask, my understanding is that we didn�*t actually know about this ownership, this part ownership, it wasn�*t in the public domain for quite some time. it was kept very quiet through a series of cayman island accounts and it only really c