At first glance, it seemed same old, same old. Britain’s print media backed their usual teams when Rishi Sunak announced an election this week. Yet, behind the scenes, much has changed, not least the fact that the party’s traditional supporters on the right are distracted by another battle: one for the soul of the Conservative party and also their own futures.
Britain’s newspapers face an unusual terrain of shifting ownerships and loyalties, making this election one of the most fascinating for years. The battle is no longer just about Labour versus Conservative, but different factions of the Conservative party itself. And it’s a fight that will be televised for the first time by GB News, the opinionated upstart TV channel facing regulatory sanctions over its lack of impartiality.
The best example of a newspaper in a state of flux both internally and externally is one that matters more than most to the party in power. While the Daily Telegraph’s news coverage yesterday offered the sort of in-depth reporting it was once known for, a slew of opinion columns went on the attack. Under the headline, “There are just 1,000 hours to save Britain”, Allister Heath went after Labour’s “socialist agenda” and the “tyranny of the out of touch pro-Labour elite”. He urged Sunak to take on “human rights lawyers” and not just the one leading a rival party.
All newspapers tend to reflect the views of their owners as much as their readers, which makes the position of the Telegraph all the more unusual. The paper faces this election effectively ownerless after being offered as collateral for the enormous debts run up by its erstwhile owners, the Barclay family. RedBird IMI, which took on the debt, was blocked by the government from taking it over but has not had time to sell it. With just six weeks to go before the election, any government decision on the new ownership is expected to be made by a Labour government – if the polls are proved right. Alice Enders, head of research at Enders Analysis, said the situation had turned the paper into a “ghost ship”.
Both the Conservative party and the paper that has supported it throughout are in limbo. An election is expected to herald not just a new government but a Tory leadership election challenge, focusing on the enduring fight between rightwing populism and what remains of centrist, one-nation Toryism. At the same time, a new owner of the Telegraph is expected to bring about changes within the editorial team as well.
The fight for the future of the Conservative party is perhaps more marked within the Telegraph for this reason – important given its long and storied history as the true blue paper. It is the only broadsheet never to have backed another party in an election. In recent years, it has offered loud support for the anti-immigration and low-tax policies of the populist right wing. Another column, this time from former minister David Frost, called a coming Labour administration a “catastrophe” on Thursday.
The Telegraph’s sympathetic coverage of these issues, as well its sympathetic coverage of GB News, is particularly interesting given that Sir Paul Marshall, co-owner of the upstart channel and owner of the website UnHerd, is now the favourite to take over the Telegraph.
If any piece highlighted this confluence of influence it was one launched just a few hours after the election announcement by Robin Aitken, a former BBC journalist turned critic and UnHerd writer. Headlined “GB News is going from strength to strength – and the media elite is terrified”, the article attacked the “old, stale media consensus that censors proper debate about important topics” such as “climate change”. With the channel facing sanctions from Ofcom, Aitken argued that it had only offended “elite opinion”, as media impartiality is “a Big Lie”.
Marshall is unlikely to face a competition review if he manages to buy the Telegraph because he doesn’t own other print papers – unlike Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail. That paper has so far kept much of its powder relatively dry on Starmer (though not on his deputy, Angela Rayner). After trying as hard as it could to make a drenched Sunak look prime ministerial with its headline, “Now is the moment for Britain to choose its future”, the Mail’s own future includes defending allegations of phone hacking by Dame Doreen Lawrence, among others. Labour has so far made few announcements about the issue, which has cost Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers £1bn and counting.
If there is one thing previous elections have proved since he bought his first British newspaper, it’s that Rupert Murdoch is a press proprietor who likes to back winners, from Tony Blair to Donald Trump. So it is interesting that his papers have so far remained even more fence-sitting than usual. The normally tribal Sun greeted the news of a poll on 4 July with disappointment about a spoilt summer, alongside pictures of Taylor Swift and Harry Kane. The Times also played a straight bat. Its main leader praised Sunak for the way he has dealt with a “dreadful hand” while suggesting that both leaders “will be tested severely in the heat of battle”.
The supposed influence of rightwing newspapers has long been tested by their declining readership and profits – so many voters find their news and information from online-only sources and, of course, broadcast media. Media regulator Ofcom may have taken ages to act but its recent threat of sanctions against GB News after regular appearances by sitting politicians now looks timely. It will at least have put the channel on notice when covering its first general election.
In announcing the first July election since 1945, Rishi Sunak ramped up the war metaphors – vowing not to “leave the people of this country to face the darkest of days alone”. The Conservative party’s friends in the media are unlikely to forsake it completely, but there are early signs that Rishi Sunak could be a lot lonelier than many of his predecessors.
Jane Martinson is a Guardian columnist
