READ all about it.
Or not, as the case may be.
Reports this week suggested that the government plans to ban foreign governments from owning British newspapers and magazines.
The news emerged after a frenzied few months of debate about the merits of allowing an Abu Dhabi-led takeover of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator magazine.
Financial problems within the business of the current owners, the Barclay family (I never understand why the owners are still referred to in media reports as “the Barclay brothers” given that Sir David Barclay died in 2021 leaving his identical twin brother Sir Frederick) have meant that the ‘for sale’ sign has been put up over its media empire.
That has led to quite a frenzy of interest, given that print media isn’t exactly a growth industry.
Up to now the bidder in pole position to secure the Telegraph titles is a joint US-Abu Dhabi joint venture called Redbird-IMI.
It is 75% owned by Sheikh Mansour, vice president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is headed by former CNN executive Jeff Zucker who has consistently argued that Sheikh Mansour is investing in a personal capacity and pledged an independent editorial structure to prevent influence over content.
The future of the Telegraph titles has been the subject of fierce debate in Conservative circles since RedBird circumvented a formal auction by repaying money owed to Lloyds Bank by former owners the Barclay family, who had put the newspapers up as security.
Former Tory leaders Lord Hague and Iain Duncan Smith opposed the takeover arguing that it was inappropriate for significant media assets to be effectively owned by a foreign state.
Scores of MPs have backed that stance.
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer referred the takeover to Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) earlier this year on public interest grounds, effectively freezing the deal and leaving the Telegraph in limbo, the shares formally sitting with the Barclay family.
This latest mooted move by the government means that unless Redbird-IMI restructures itself in terms of ownership then the Telegraph titles are more likely to be acquired by an interested party closer to home such as Daily Mail owner Lord Rothermere, Rupert Murdoch’s New UK – which owns The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times – and Paul Marshall co-owner of GB News.
Yes that’s the GB News which is the subject of numerous complaints to and investigations by media regulator Ofcom and home to such luminary presenters as Lee Anderson and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.
OK, I’m in the media and I’m interested in this story; you may well not give a toss.
What I do think is of interest is that the people who govern us are getting in such a tizzy over the future ownership of the Daily Telegraph.
Of course, they, and a few retired colonels living in the home counties, still read the newspaper.
It still carries some influence, but does it really help shape the way the nation thinks?
Can any newspaper really make that claim any more?
In the age of social media in which we live I would have hoped that politicians would focus their attention on the global, foreign-owned social media giants that have much more influence on how people think and what they believe.
Tik Tok is Chinese-owned. X, formally Twitter, is in the hands of the mercurial maverick Elon Musk and Facebook and Instagram are part of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta empire.
Between them they have billions of subscribers across the globe.
The Daily Telegraph has around one million digital and print subscribers.
And as for not wanting foreign governments to own our media assets, we are quite happy to hawk them our vital infrastructure.
The UAE has pumped money into numerous high-profile projects as part of a £10bn five-year investment programme, including wind farms and life sciences, and has been approached about a potential stake in the Sizewell C nuclear power station.
We are fine that Middle East governments own Premier League football clubs like Manchester City and Newcastle.
And our politicians have enthusiastically encouraged foreign firms to buy up British assets like water companies, electricity suppliers, sea ports, airports and railway companies.
But when it comes to the Daily bloody Telegraph, that is a step too far.
That’s the thing about politicians, you can always rely on them to get their priorities right.
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ANOTHER week, another crisis.
OK, the Duchess of Cambridge tweaking a family photograph of her and her kids doesn’t seem as big an issue as Red Bull Formula 1 boss Christian Horner “sexting” a female employee of the racing team.
Horner, as I wrote about last week, has been accused of sending explicit messages to a younger female colleague, including, I gather, photographs of his….well, you know.
You know exactly what I mean, don’t pretend you don’t.
You might be shy, but I’m not, so I’ll tell you.
In a delicate situation like this you need to pick your words carefully and so I will call it photos of his “diddler”.
That is the correct expression as it was used in a Carry On film by Kenneth Williams, to refer to a notorious highwayman who can only be identified by a birthmark on his “diddler”.
Given the film in question was Carry On Dick, I’ve always wondered why they bothered to avoid a ribald, risqué and Rabelaisian reference.
Things may have gone quiet on both issues, but my gut feeling is that we haven’t heard the last of either.
They still “have legs” as they say in journalism – i.e. they have further to run.
The general approach from the public to the Kate family photo story is that it is a storm in a teacup.
What is the problem with a mum photoshopping a snap said to have been taken by her husband of her with her three kids to celebrate Mothers’ Day?
If that were the case then it would be fine, but, in my experience of many years in journalism, international photographic and news agencies like Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Getty Images don’t issue a “kill notice” to media around the globe without good reason.
A “kill notice” means that the agencies don’t trust the image and have deleted it from their libraries and advise their clients to do the same.
To put it in perspective, it is the kind of move that agencies like this usually reserve for suspect images released by North Korea and Iran, not the British Royal Family.
The reality is likely to be that this wasn’t just a case of a bit of tweaking to a photo by the Duchess of Cambridge.
These agencies didn’t trust the photograph at all.
There have been calls to issue the original picture but that hasn’t happened yet.
That could very well be because the original doesn’t actually exist and this picture could even have been created from several images.
You might still think this is a fuss over nothing.
But at a time when there has been wild speculation about Kate given she hadn’t been seen since Christmas because she underwent what Kensington Palace described as “abdominal surgery”, the publicity around this photograph has done nothing to quell the gossip and hearsay.
And given that here was a photo we were told was taken by the heir to the throne of the future Queen and their children, one also a future King, then surely don’t we need to trust the information we are provided by our next head of state?
If that’s not the case then we are living in the kind of world George Orwell imagined in 1984 and exists today writ large in Russia and North Korea.
I think I was more comfortable focusing on Christian’s “diddler”.
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NEWS reaches me that menswear doyen Simon Berwin, former head of family-owned Leeds suit maker Berwin & Berwin, is selling off his late father Malcolm’s car registration plate.
Given Simon’s regular rants on Linkedin about the state of access to Leeds city centre in general and the city’s train station in particular, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not sold his car and bought a penny farthing for his daily commute.
It would probably be quick and definitely less hassle.
Malcolm Berwin, known in the trade as “Mr Malcolm” died earlier this year aged 96.
He was a regular reader of this blog and a real character, active and at the gym daily until weeks before he passed away.
Simon is now selling Malcolm’s car registration plate: SU17TSS.
I’m sure those within the tailoring sector will be interested in such a unique registration.
But given the state of how men now dress, even for work and business meetings, perhaps some alternative reg plates might be even more valuable.
Like H00D1E, AN0R4K and TR41N3RZ
Have a great weekend.