PIF, PCP, and RB Sports & Media

[PauloGeordio]

1 hour ago, Ben said:

 

Remember the Wheely bins full of ice or training on a public park in Durham ?

Halcyon daze! 

[Jack27]

bit of a nothing story but interesting nonetheless 

[Keegans Export]

This part was interesting;

 

Quote

Results from another FOI submitted by the campaign group suggest the council asked the club for £23m to help fund a free meal for every child in the city every day for a year.

 

The local authority has had to cut £369m from its budget since 2010.

 

Director of human rights research group Fair Square, Nick McGeehan, said: "I think it's a huge problem when a cash-strapped local council has very strong links to a capital rich, very wealthy foreign state, particularly when that foreign state is deeply autocratic and anti-democratic.

 

I think the fact that a council has to ask a wealthy foreign state to help feed children is a huge problem but I suppose we all have our own priorities...

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly a huge fan of what goes on in Saudi Arabia, but there are clearly some major issues closer to home that need addressing.

[Bally21]

10 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

This part was interesting;

 

 

I think the fact that a council has to ask a wealthy foreign state to help feed children is a huge problem but I suppose we all have our own priorities...

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly a huge fan of what goes on in Saudi Arabia, but there are clearly some major issues closer to home that need addressing.

Totally agree, hungry kids, old people waiting on trollies in hospitals, no police on the streets, I could go on, and on.

[Ben]

1 hour ago, Keegans Export said:

This part was interesting;

 

 

I think the fact that a council has to ask a wealthy foreign state to help feed children is a huge problem but I suppose we all have our own priorities...

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly a huge fan of what goes on in Saudi Arabia, but there are clearly some major issues closer to home that need addressing.

 

100% agree, to go to the Saudis with a begging bowl like this is disgraceful, schemes like this should be done through the foundation.

 

At least we now know the council can be bought for the right price, bye bye Leazes Terrace 

[TheBrownBottle]

30 minutes ago, Ben said:

 

100% agree, to go to the Saudis with a begging bowl like this is disgraceful, schemes like this should be done through the foundation.

 

At least we now know the council can be bought for the right price, bye bye Leazes Terrace 

There shouldn’t be schemes like at all.  Feeding children through a charity is reprehensible.  The state is responsible - the UK is wealthy enough to feed children. 

 

 

Edited May 14 by TheBrownBottle

[Keegans Export]

Just now, TheBrownBottle said:

There shouldn’t be schemes like it.  The state is responsible - the UK is wealthy enough to feed children. 

 

Yes, this is the point I was trying to make.

 

I don't like the idea of the Council going cap-in-hand to the club but the problem is that they're trying to fill the gap left by having their budgets cut time and time again.

[TheBrownBottle]

2 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

 

Yes, this is the point I was trying to make.

 

I don't like the idea of the Council going cap-in-hand to the club but the problem is that they're trying to fill the gap left by having their budgets cut time and time again.

Yep, with you 100%.  I have deep and serious concerns with who owns our club, the govt of KSA is pretty much the worst of the worst, but I’m scratching my head at Nick McGeehan missing the point by a considerable margin.

[Tiresias]

I mean whisper it but local government has some links to national government and this run by some right cunt too... (ok yeah false equivalence I know)

[BoSelecta]

I’m sure the starving kids will sleep easy tonight, safe in the knowledge they’re not being nourished by the evil Saudis. 

[LFEE]

Planning permission incoming then?

[Kid Icarus]

3 hours ago, BoSelecta said:

I’m sure the starving kids will sleep easy tonight, safe in the knowledge they’re not being nourished by the evil Saudis. 

 

and that's how they get you.

[Stifler]

2 minutes ago, LFEE said:

Planning permission incoming then?

No, I doubt it.

It’s common practice that councils and local authorities work with businesses, either via helping them access funds, or in this case, requesting a form of sponsorship.

A big new company in the area, ‘Let’s work with them’. No doubt Sunderland council have had similar conversations with Nissan, for example.

[Dr Jinx]

26 minutes ago, LFEE said:

Planning permission incoming then?

It’s nowhere near that stage yet. When they decided what they want to do, then it’s over to the architects and other teams to work on a design. They’re not gonna pull that out of their arse, it all takes time.

[Groundhog63]

Malnutritionwashing 

[Jack27]

Is anybody on here a member of the Fan Advisory Board? They have a meeting tonight I think. I wonder if we’ll get any more info on the feasibility study 

[BoSelecta]

29 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

and that's how they get you.

Not at all. I’m no apologist for the Saudis but I can also remark on how privileged and blinkered you have to be to see Newcastle Council trying to feed kids in poverty through a connection with the club and your reaction to that is ‘I’m concerned with the councils relationship with the Saudi regime’.

 

edit. Grammar 

 

 

Edited May 14 by BoSelecta

[Kid Icarus]

3 minutes ago, BoSelecta said:

Not at all. I’m no apologist for the Saudis but I can also remark on how privileged and blinkered you have to be to see Newcastle Council trying to feed kids in poverty through a connection with the club and your reaction to that is ‘I’m concerned with the councils relationship with the Saudi regime’.

 

edit. Grammar 

 

The point is that the argument you're making now is how they get you. It's almost a check mate because it's very difficult to say you don't want your council to have close ties with Saudi Arabia for obvious reasons without it being met with the 'privileged' and 'blinkered' response. And that's exactly why they and tons of other organisations and states do it, so that they can make that argument or have it made on their behalf while they're essentially buying influence.

 

In reality though, it's a false premise based on the assumption that kids can only be fed if councils go cap in hand to the Saudis, which is obviously not true. 

[LFEE]

59 minutes ago, Dr Jinx said:

It’s nowhere near that stage yet. When they decided what they want to do, then it’s over to the architects and other teams to work on a design. They’re not gonna pull that out of their arse, it all takes time.

It wasn’t meant to be taken so literally 

 

So I’ll reword…

 

The start of scratching each others backs?

[FloydianMag]

37 minutes ago, LFEE said:

It wasn’t meant to be taken so literally 

 

So I’ll reword…

 

The start of scratching each others backs?

Scratchy scratchy……….it’s how the world works, hardly anyone does anything for fuck all.

[Charlies]

Ronnygill:

 

Newcastle pitched as 'gateway to Saudi' after claim of £3bn to 'sustain' 2,000 North East jobs

Deputy PM Oliver Dowden has announced an 'ongoing investment' of £3 billion in the North East from Saudi Arabia, while a delegation from the city is part of a major trade summit.

 

Sarah Green of the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative is among the speakers at a UK trade summit in Riyadh this week.

 

The Government has championed a £3 billion investment in the North East from Saudi Arabia that it is claimed will sustain 2,000 jobs.

 

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden made the announcement on a major trade mission to Riyadh, which he hailed as an “important moment for British business” and which includes a specific panel about Newcastle promoting the city as a “gateway to Saudi through innovative trade and investment”. However, the Cabinet Office has not responded to requests from the Local Democracy Reporting Service to clarify what that investment relates to or where the affected jobs are.

Mr Dowden’s statement came on the same day that details of emails between senior figures at Newcastle City Council and Newcastle United were published, revealing a push from city officials to secure more money from and closer ties with the Gulf nation following the Saudi-led takeover of the football club. Human rights campaigners have raised concerns about the prospect of increasing ties between Tyneside and Saudi Arabia, with Amnesty International warning this week that such relationships can “distract attention” from the kingdom’s “appalling human rights record”.

 

Mr Dowden's visit, alongside a 450-strong delegation of British businesses, came after a BBC report last week claiming that Saudi forces had been permitted to use lethal force to clear land for the building of a multibillion-pound desert city. 

A press release promoting the two-day UK-Saudi summit highlighted that “figures to be announced by the Deputy Prime Minister show the North East alone stands to benefit from a further £3 billion of ongoing investment from Saudi Arabia, helping to sustain c.2000 jobs in the region”. It added that the Great Futures conference is “expected to secure a constellation of investment across critical sectors: from financial services, to higher education”, but did not specify what the North East investment relates to.

Newcastle United co-owner Amanda Staveley, Newcastle Gateshead Initiative CEO Sarah Green, Newcastle United Women head coach Becky Langley, Northumbria University vice-chancellor Andy Long, North East Screen CEO Alison Gwynn are all listed among the speakers at the Riyadh summit. On the schedule for day two of the event on Wednesday is a panel entitled “Focus On Newcastle Upon Tyne: Building A Gateway To Saudi Through Innovative Trade And Investment”.

 

The agenda for that discussion states that it will cover how the takeover of Newcastle United, led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), has created a “unique opportunity between Saudi Arabia and the North East of England and benefiting the wider UK, for increased levels of trade and investment in sectors such as hospitality and tourism, creative and knowledge-based economies including health and life sciences, data and AI, advanced renewable energy and even space exploration”.

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden (Image: PA)

On Tuesday, the Local Democracy Reporting Service published details of emails between high-ranking figures at the council and NUFC which revealed efforts to use the 2021 takeover of the football club to develop new ties from Newcastle, North East businesses, and universities to Saudi Arabia. The messages, obtained via a freedom of information request from the NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing group, included a briefing written from council director Michelle Percy for Ms Staveley ahead of a meeting with investment minister Lord Dominic Johnson in April 2023.

That note, from April 2023, stated that “there is an ambition for Newcastle to attract further investment from the [Gulf] region” following the NUFC takeover, to increase exports from the North East, and bring in tourists.

Felix Jakens, Amnesty International UK’s Head of Campaigns, warned that "when it comes to attracting Saudi money there is no such thing as a free lunch". He added: “Newcastle City Council should be careful who it approaches for money – this type of relationship with Saudi Arabia aids its efforts to distract attention from its appalling human rights record from a crackdown that has seen women imprisoned for demanding equality to a record number of executions."

The cache of emails also detailed how Ms Staveley was asked by the council to intervene at the highest levels of the UK Government during a row over funding for the Tyne Bridge’s restoration and how city Labourleader Nick Kemp urged the football club to pay more than £23 million to fund free school meals.

[BoSelecta]

53 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

The point is that the argument you're making now is how they get you. It's almost a check mate because it's very difficult to say you don't want your council to have close ties with Saudi Arabia for obvious reasons without it being met with the 'privileged' and 'blinkered' response. And that's exactly why they and tons of other organisations and states do it, so that they can make that argument or have it made on their behalf while they're essentially buying influence.

 

In reality though, it's a false premise based on the assumption that kids can only be fed if councils go cap in hand to the Saudis, which is obviously not true. 

Maybe I have been got but I think you can quite easily make the point. If I was writing the headline it might read something like ‘Soaring child poverty and tory austerity is driving local councils into the arms of foreign dictatorships in order to feed desperate families’.

 

 

 

 

[Sima]

That BBC article wouldn’t exist if the investment was into London and not Newcastle.

[The Prophet]

 

[Whitley mag]

1 hour ago, Sima said:

That BBC article wouldn’t exist if the investment was into London and not Newcastle.

Spot on if Newcastle benefits from Saudi investment like Manchester has from Abhu Dhabi fucking brilliant. 
 

This is the part of the takeover that fully justifies govt intervention to push it through, it’s taken a while to gather pace but if the Tyne gets investment for offshore and the universities as well, it’ll  be tremendous for the whole of Tyneside and wider region.