Fairly good article from the Guardian

[The Tony]

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/mar/31/arsenal-olig archs-tv-billions (http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/mar/31/arsenal-oligarchs-tv-billions)

[Mo Britain less Europe]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

[Mo Britain less Europe]

[Classic Jorge]

Dont worry, by 2020 not only will Gideon have balanced the budget he will also have turned the UK into an oligarchy.

[Classic Jorge]

[Mo Britain less Europe]

[Classic Jorge]

[Mo Britain less Europe]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

While I am neither inside nor outside his camp, it is pushing the blame game a little too far to label him the “meanest …” etc.

[Classic Jorge]

A siamese is different from a dalmation, despite them both having collars and eating tinned food.

[Classic Jorge]

Chosing instead to try and call Stan an oligarch, which he isnt.

I'm not even entirely sure Usmanov is, in Uzbekistan I mean, as he's not even resident there.

Anyway, I prefer the term Steel Magnate for obvious reasons.

[Mo Britain less Europe]

current position of, for example, the Russian oligarchs, so...

[Mo Britain less Europe]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

You may as well call Stan a Paddy.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Did you get it from a rescue centre, or something?

[Mo Britain less Europe]

Union. But the term already existed and it is not related to nationality or residence.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

So it's just a rich guy?

[Mo Britain less Europe]

political clout beyond his wealth. In Russia during the Yeltsin era the oligarchs (and I'm talking about the big boys, there has been a tendency to call anyone with a few tens of millions an oligarch) were effectively the power behind the throne because Yelstin's family were enmeshed with them.

[Classic Jorge]

[Classic Jorge]

I'm confused now.

[Classic Jorge]

Some c**t had taped up a cardboard box with a kitten in it, in sub-zero temperatures. I rescued the lad, he was triffik.

tbh he mostly ate tinned tuna from the turkist supermarket

[Ashberto]

So as their wealth came from the state, it is appropriate to use the word oligarch. Likewise, the wealth of Man City's owners comes from direct state power.

Stanley, OTOH, has no state power or wealth behind his fortune, which as we all know made by the family of his wife. That and trousering three million of our sterlings each year out of the Arsenal coffers.

So, Stan isn't an oligarch, just a rich man. :judge:

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

See 2:11 pm

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

I believe, though can be corrected, that he was already a very wealthy man before meeting the lady.

It was marriage that made him super wealthy as such.

[Mo Britain less Europe]

But in effect that era has passed. That's what the Berezovsky spat and the attack on Yukos were about. The oligarchs are no longer oligarchs: they are allowed to carry on making money if Putin wants them to.

[Mo Britain less Europe]

[Classic Jorge]

Not to mention a massive part of one of the soviet union's most profitable industry.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Can you see how this is confusing Mo?

[Ashberto]

[Classic Jorge]

:contractual:

#olddognewtricks

[PSRB]

in the hope that the private sector would actually do a decent job and which for the most part they have

[Classic Jorge]

Two of those companies I refuse to deal with (I worked for BG for a short time and they have absolutely no idea what their customers do/dont use) and the rail companies I keep to an absolute minimum.