DIn an interview with the BBC in 2021, Dominic Cummings, a former adviser to Boris Johnson, recalled that when Boris Johnson was prime minister, he continued to discuss Telegraph – where he once worked as an editorialist – as his own “real boss”. This speaks volumes about the importance of leading conservative dailies in shaping opinion across the Channel. The reason why his future has been closely scrutinized since 2023.
Saturday 22 November, the Daily Mail press group and the General Trust, owners of the daily newspaper Daily Mail, Metro And Paper iannounced that it had entered into exclusive negotiations to repurchase Telegraph for 500 million pounds sterling (568 million euros). Enough to become the center of a large (too?) powerful conservative newspaper under the control of Jonathan Harmsworth, Lord Rothermere, great-grandson of the founder Daily Mailat a time when Britain’s populist Reform party is outperforming Labor in the polls.
THAT Telegraph has been for sale since the Barclay family lost control in 2023 to its creditor, Lloyds Banking Group. Initially, American private equity fund RedBird allied with IMI, an Abu Dhabi fund, took an option to buy the daily, in return for debt repayment. But British MPs from all parties rebelled against the risk of foreign interference, passing a law prohibiting foreign interests from taking more than 15% of British media capital. In doing this, a new dilemma emerged for British democracy.
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