Government scrutiny of the Telegraph sale is a good thing – even if it’s for the wrong reasons

‘Anyone arguing that no one reads or cares about a ‘dead tree’ newspaper should ask why so many very rich men still want to own one.’ Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

News that the government may intervene in the extraordinary takeover saga of Telegraph Media Group is welcome. The culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, announced on Wednesday that the sale to an Abu Dhabi-backed fund may be referred to regulators on public interest grounds – which, compared to previous newspaper sales, is a positive sign of proactive scrutiny.

When a former KGB spy, Alexander Lebedev, bought the Independent in 2010 he faced a small competition review in Ireland and cheers in the newsroom before giving a speech on press freedom. Much later, he was put on a Ukraine sanctions list following Vladimir Putin’s invasion. And when an initially unknown investor with “strong links” to Saudi Arabia took a minority stake in the Independent in 2019, the reaction was decidedly more mixed – but the government somehow missed a deadline to investigate it much further.