Despite the Conservatives’ defeat in the recent general election, the right-wing media in Britain appears to be thriving – judging by the eye-watering price for which the weekly right-wing magazine The Spectator has just been sold.
The Spectator was founded in 1828 and has published continuously since then – making it the world’s oldest surviving magazine. It has always been considered the “house journal” of the Conservative Party, with its editorship often used as a stepping stone to political prominence (most recently by Boris Johnson).
But that may be about to change. The magazine has just been sold to UK hedge-fund investor Sir Paul Marshall for £100 million. This is a staggering sum for a publication that, in 2023, turned a profit of just £2.6 million.
