Hi Robert Beston here.

On the 6th of December I'll record a tortoise podcast, The News Meeting,

when I'll tell you about the most important story of the year

and I'll also talk to you about my new book about how to fix Britain and the West.

Fast.

Now, as an exciting Christmas tree, you can join me at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill by going to Intelligencesquare.com to get tickets.

See you then.

Maybe 30 or 20 years ago, a Saudi might have said,

I'm Muslim and I'm Arab and I'm Saudi.

Now they might say, I'm Saudi and I'm Arab and I'm Muslim.

You know, they're trying to radically refashion their country and they need help from the best experts in the world.

Do you want to have your country's people be disqualified from that because of some essentially

antiquated point of view about how countries work together?

In recent months it can feel like Saudi Arabia is intent on buying the world.

It's bought up much of golf, sports teams, many of the globe's best soccer players to its own domestic league and it owns huge chunks

of many of the biggest companies on the planet.

But Saudi Arabia is not just on a shopping spree.

The once insular oil-rich kingdom is transforming into a major diplomatic and military player,

a pivotal actor in the energy transition and looks set to post high-end cultural events like the FIFA World Cup.

You know, they know that buying a football club immediately brings you a

billboard into a global game that allows you to completely reposition yourself

or rebrand yourself.

...