Lord Rothermere’s Telegraph takeover extends rightwing’s reach over British media
As the dust settles from the battle for the ownership of the Daily Telegraph, one man has been left standing: Lord Rothermere, whose family have been a mainstay of British newspapers for more than a century.“This is a very British stitch-up,” said Lionel Barber, the former editor of the Financial Times. “Lord Rothermere has played a very astute poker hand, he’s shown patience and he’s the big winner.”The announcement on Saturday morning that the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) had agreed a £500m deal with the Daily Telegraph’s owners, RedBird IMI, could bring to an end a saga that began in 2023 when both Telegraph titles and the Spectator magazine were put up for sale due to debts owed by the Barclay family.RedBird Capital, the US group led by Gerry Cardinale, had dropped its own bid just over a week ago amid campaigning from the Telegraph’s newsroom for its links to China to be investigated.A previous RedBird offer, backed by Abu Dhabi, had also faced criticism and calls for government to intervene over concerns it could be run by a foreign state.Such was the concern over its future that Keir Starmer joked at prime minister’s questions that Tory MPs were asking him to nationalise the newspaper.Rothermere was previously in negotiations to buy 9.9% equity in the Telegraph.“I’ve always maintained that he was the likely owner, once Cardinale RedBird IMI exited, because they were never going to be decades-long owners of the Daily Telegraph,” Barber said.“Rothermere was sitting there with 9%, and he therefore would have been in a very strong position in five or seven years to take over.“What’s happened as a result of the extremely vociferous and extraordinary lobbying and Telegraph editorial campaign against their putative owner is that, literally, they’ve cleared the battlefield, and there is Rothermere, the last man standing.”If the deal goes through, as indicated by DMGT, which anticipates it should happen quickly, it would further extend the company’s reach over the British media landscape at a time when social media provides a swathe of the population with their news.The Daily Telegraph would join the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Metro and the i Paper in DMGT’s stable of national newspapers.View image in fullscreenThe Telegraph’s offices in central London. RedBird Capital, the US group led by Gerry Cardinale, had dropped its own bid in the face of campaigning from the Telegraph’s newsroom for its links to China to be investigated. Photograph: PA Images/AlamyThe culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has said she will review any buyer.While DMGT has pledged the Daily Telegraph will remain editorially independent from other titles, there is a concern that it represents a consolidation of media organisations on the right that are already emboldened by the scalps of Tim Davie at the BBC in recent weeks, as well as Angela Rayner and Lord Mandelson.While there are few things generations of Labour leaders are in total agreement on, all have felt they have been on the receiving end of harsh treatment by part of the press.Tom Baldwin, who was director of communications for Ed Miliband when he was leader of the Labour party and was political editor at the Sunday Telegraph, said he was concerned about the effect the merger would have.Baldwin said: “Britain’s media is already tilted dangerously to a homogenous, rightwing, angry point of view. A merger between the Mail and the Telegraph will only exacerbate that.“There are lots of grounds to be concerned about this on reasons of plurality, for competition, but more than anything else this Labour government should consider whether it is good for Britain, and good for its democracy, for the Daily Mail to strengthen its pernicious grip on Britain’s media.”His view was backed up by the former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, who said: “Everyone should be able to recognise that the creation of a rightwing press giant will plainly not improve balance of opinion and presentation.“Indeed, it is likely to diminish competition and diversity in providing information and opinion – the most precious of all commodities.“That would harm discernment and, therefore, democracy. I hope that the competition authority will attach prime significance to that reality.”Baldwin added: “Given the last 16 months, where from day one of this government there’s been a wall of angry, sometimes hyperbolic, often misleading coverage against everything, and that has I think affected the government’s fortunes.“I think there will be pressure from Labour MPs on Lisa Nandy. There are a lot of people who are concerned that the government hasn’t spoken out enough in recent weeks about the BBC, the idea that Labour will just silently nod through a deal to strengthen the Daily Mail’s grip on national discourse, seems really counterintuitive.“From day one of this government, those newspapers were set out to damage and destroy in any way possible. There would never be any intention by the Mail or the Telegraph to treat the government fairly. They do no favours at all to this government, this government shouldn’t do any favours to them.”However, Barber said: “They didn’t try and defend the RedBird bid, they never kind of looked at it in the mirror and said, here’s the Telegraph that hates us. A ruthless politician would have said, that’s fine, we’ll just let RedBird through.“Now for any Labour party member or even minister to be complaining about the consolidation of the right in the media, it just rings rather hollow, doesn’t it, because the government didn’t do anything to stop this.”
