Section:GDN 1N PaGe:15 Edition Date:190724 Edition:03 Zone: Sent at 24/7/2019 0:00 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
Wednesday 24 July 2019 The Guardian •••
National^15
Saudi state part-owns Evening Standard and
Independent, British government tells court
training, delayed their access to health
care, isolated them from meaningful
human interaction and frustrated
them to the point where violence and
self-harm have become the means to
express themselves or gain attention”.
He said the problems stemmed from
over reliance on “keep apart” policies.
Feltham has long been notorious for
high levels of violence but an inspec-
tion last year found the situation
had improved. However, an inspec-
tion in January this year found safety
and care to have deteriorated and as
a result an additional review for July
was scheduled , from which the urgent
notifi cation was issued.Jim Waterson
Media editor
The Evening Standard and the Inde-
pendent have been explicitly accused
by the British government of being
part-owned by the Saudi Arabian state
through a series of “unconventional,
complex, and clandestine” deals used
to hide the sale of stakes in the Lon-
don-based news outlets to a Saudi
government bank.
Evgeny Lebedev , who controls
both publications, sold stakes in
them of 30% to off shore companies
fronted by a Saudi businessman , Sul-
tan Mohamed Abuljadayel , in 2017
and 2018. The Standard and the Inde-
pendent say they are unsure who
that the ultimate investor may have
“strong links to the Saudi Arabian
state” and raising fears that a foreign
government may have gained infl u-
ence over the news direction of two
major British publications.
The decision to intervene is highly
political. The Standard, a free London
newspaper that has reported heavy
losses, is edited by the former Con-
servative chancellor George Osborne,
who has let it be known he would con-
sider a return to frontline politics.The incoming Conservative prime
minister, Boris Johnson , who could
infl uence the direction of the inquiry,
has refused to answer questions from
the Guardian about his attendance at
parties held at Lebedev’s Italian castle.
Wright previously said the Saudi
investment deals “may have an eff ect
on the Evening Standard and the Inde-
pendent’s news agendas”.
The Independent has already
launched a series of foreign-language
websites run and staff ed by Saudi jour-
nalists and aimed at audiences in some
of the nation’s regional rivals.
Saudi Arabia has a poor record on
press freedom, and the sale of the stake
in the Standard’s parent company took
place in the aftermath of the murder of
the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, widely‘Extraordinary’ decline in safety
reported at Feltham youth jail
Philosopher
fi red for ‘racist
slur’ returns to
government
Haroon Siddique
Urgent intervention has been reque-
sted at a young off ender institution
after a review uncovered rocketing lev-
els of violence and self-harm.
Peter Clarke , the chief inspector of
prisons, said the inspection of Feltham
A, the west London unit for boys aged
Ben QuinnA conservative philosopher has
been reappointed to a government
commission from which he was sacked
when he was judged to have made
infl ammatory remarks about Chinese
people during a magazine interview.
Sir Roger Scruton has said he was
misrepresented and made to look as
if he was making a “racist slur” about
Chinese people following an inter-
view with the New Statesman , which
subsequently apologised to him and
said that his views were not accurately
represented.
The academic, who had been chair-
man of the government’s Building
Better, Building Beautiful commission ,
has now been appointed as its co-chair
by the communities secretary , James
Brokenshire.
In a letter, he expressed his grati-
tude for Scruton’s thoughts on what
form the re-appointment might take,
including a suggestion that he would
become a co-chair alongside Nicholas
Boys-Smith.
Scruton replied that he was
“pleased that the matter had been
resolved,” according to correspond-
ence published on Tuesday by the
Spectator. The Spectator turned
Scruton’s sacking into a cause cele-
bre for conservatives, who insisted
quotes in a New Statesman article –
such as “Each Chinese person is a kind
of replica of the next one and that is a
very frightening thing” – were part of
a longer discussion by him about the
power of the Chinese state to impose
its will on citizens, rather than racism.
Scruton told the Guardian that
he was “very glad that this has been
resolved, and that I can devote some
time to what is one of our most
important national problems.”15 to 18, identifi ed an “extraordinary”
decline in safety and care for inmates.
As a result he has invoked the rarely-
used urgent notification process ,
which requires the justice secretary,
David Gauke, to respond publicly
within 28 days with action to improve
conditions. In a letter to Gauke pub-
lished today, among the problems
Clarke highlighted were:- 40% of teenagers said they had felt
unsafe at some point during their stay.- The number of violent incidents had
risen by 45% since January, despite the
number of inmates falling. - The number of assaults against
staff had risen by around 150% since
January. - Levels of self-harm had tripled since
the previous inspection and were 14
times higher than in January 2017. - 74% of teenagers reported they had
been physically restrained by staff ,
with more than 700 incidents in the
past six months.
Clarke said a collapse of “any rea-
sonable regime” has “prevented many
children from getting to education or
ultimately employs the businessman.
The government’s legal representative
David Scannell told a court yesterday
that the Saudi Arabian government
could now potentially exert edito-
rial infl uence over the news outlets.
He said the sale of the shares ha d
“national security implications” and
accused Lebedev of going out of his
way to avoid answering questions
about the deals.
“What is of concern to Her Majesty’s
government is that a foreign state
could be acquiring a substantial stake
in Lebedev Holdings [owner of the
Evening Standard] and the Independ-
ent simultaneously,” he said.
The culture secretary, Jeremy
Wright, l ast month announced an
investigation into the sales , warningGaultier as charged The French designer Jean Paul Gaultier with the cast of his Fashion Freak
Show, billed as ‘part revue, part catwalk show’. It will run at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London’s
Southbank Centre until 2 August and will feature his most famous creations and new designs.PHOTO: TRISTRAM
KENTON/GUARDIAN
30%
The size of the stakes in the Evening
Standard and the Independent sold
by Evgeny Lebedev to off shore fi rmsconsidered to have been carried out by
by Saudi offi cials.
The Independent and the Standard
insist concerns about editorial inde-
pendence are unfounded and that
they are not infl uenced by fi nancial
backers.
Lebedev’s lawyers are fi ghting to
stop the government investigating
the Saudi investment on a technical-
ity, arguing that it waited too long and
missed the deadline to intervene.
In response, the government says its
decision was delayed, in part, because
Lebedev and the Saudi investors
refused to provide key information.
Lebedev’s lawyers also argued that
the government should have started
investigating earlier because the
investment had been covered in the
Financial Times and the Guardian.
The legal challenge was only against
the decision to refer the Saudi invest-
ment to the Competition Commission
on merger grounds. Wright has sep-
arately asked the media regulator,
Ofcom, to investigate any public inter-
est concerns.РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS