How Qatar bought up Britain
As the world’s attention turns to the emirate for the World Cup, an Observer investigation reveals that it and its ruling family have amassed a £10bn property empire
£10 billion! Lorra Lots!
The UK property market is worth perhaps £8 trillion. Qatar has perhaps 0.125% of the market. That’s not, to any useful level of accuracy, “bought up” now, is it?
Normal racist lefty stuff.
But it’s Good racism!
It’s on the same level of argument as “Bill Gates is the biggest owner of agricultural land in the USA”.
Does the article point out that if we drilled a bit more the medieval tyrants of Qatar would have less money?
Not being a property magnate, I would think that most of the £8 trillion worth of property consists of 2 or 3 bedrooms terraced or semi detached houses, bungalows, or flats spread around the country, and unlikely to be the target of the Qatari estate agents. It is more likely to be the high end properties in the City, the inner circles of Hammersmith and Islington, or castles in the shires. Shirley, therefore, the £10 billion property empire would constitute a higher percentage if those selected properties were separated from those described earlier. However, what do I know? I rent a one bedroomed flat.
So are we worried that they’ll dig up the land and buildings and ship them to Qatar leaving a big hole?
It’s The Grauniad – what do facts and accuracy matter when there’s a political point to be made?
Isn’t diversity supposed to be a good thing in the grauniad?
Or is the problem here that the diversity is happening in the hacks’ back yards, and not just oop north somewhere where it doesn’t affect them?
Surely the mistake here is assuming the guardian mean the whole U.K. and not just only the bits they care about