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per month. Slows. Hello

0:42

and welcome to Media Confidential, Prospect

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Magazine's weekly dose of analysis and

0:46

insight into what's really happening in

0:48

the media world's newsrooms and boardrooms.

0:50

I'm Alan Rasperger. And I'm Lionel

0:52

Barber. On this episode, is the

0:54

right wing media out of control?

0:56

The extraordinary and fast changing relationship

0:58

between Rishi Sunak's Downing Street, head

1:01

of the election, and what used

1:03

to be called the conservative media,

1:05

but increasingly is more the right

1:07

wing media. We are seeing a

1:09

very important cultural and political change

1:11

going on. And if there is

1:13

a mood of paranoia in Downing

1:15

Street, it's not entirely unreasonable. Conservatives

1:18

have never seen the right wing

1:20

media so powerful and

1:22

also so hostile to their party.

1:24

Can the Tories still rely on

1:26

its usual media backers or will

1:28

key titles desert Rishi Sunak at

1:31

the next election? Is the Reform

1:33

Party really about to shake up

1:35

Westminster politics? And how profound are

1:37

the political implications of who

1:39

takes over the Telegraph? Listen and

1:42

follow us wherever you get your podcasts to make

1:44

sure you never miss an episode. And follow us

1:46

on X-Stroke Twitter. We are

1:48

at Media Conf Pod. Solano,

1:53

this is two weeks, three

1:55

weeks running. You've been in London now. You

1:57

must be feeling almost like a native. I've

2:00

got cabin fever. I'm

2:02

looking for my next trip. Unfortunately,

2:04

I've got to stick around in this

2:07

gloomy city for another couple of weeks. What

2:10

have you been monitoring?

2:12

Well, very closely, the

2:15

American election campaign, I see

2:18

Taylor Swift has now become

2:20

the target of the Make

2:23

America Great Again Trumpists. They're

2:26

worried about Taylor Swift,

2:28

this extraordinary star, encouraging

2:30

lots of young voters to vote Democrat.

2:33

Interesting that she's become a

2:35

subject of that campaign. So they're targeting her?

2:38

They are indeed. Political operatives,

2:41

obviously, acting at the behest

2:43

of Donald Trump, I suspect,

2:45

is getting increasingly scratchy, mainly

2:48

because Nikki Haley is still in the

2:50

race defying expectations. Well, I've been closer

2:53

to home rather mesmerized

2:55

by the bizarre libel action

2:58

between Lawrence Fox and three

3:00

people on Twitter. They called

3:02

him a racist, and

3:04

he responded very unwisely by calling them

3:07

pedos. And

3:09

they suit him. And they've just

3:11

won hands down in the libel

3:14

courts. And Lawrence Fox

3:16

is very miffed because

3:18

he says, I dare they

3:20

call me a racist. They can't define

3:22

what racist is. Language is

3:24

losing all this meaning. And I only call

3:27

them pedos because they call me a

3:29

racist. I mean, two things.

3:32

One is he has got a,

3:35

I think, rudimentary grasp of how

3:37

libel works or what words mean.

3:40

And the second he recorded this as a

3:42

rather rambling monologue about all

3:45

this in the taxi on the way home saying

3:47

this is costing an awful lot of money, but it's

3:49

not costing me any money. And

3:51

it turns out that he's being

3:53

bankrolled by an investment manager called

3:56

Jeremy Hosking. Perhaps you know him from

3:58

your FT days. It's certainly

4:00

ringing a very tiny bell, but

4:03

you'll have to help me out. Well, I think

4:05

tiny bell is probably the right word for Jeremy

4:07

Hosking, except that he was one of the three

4:09

biggest backers of Brexit. He's one of the... this

4:12

club of billionaires

4:14

who keep... Billionaires

4:16

or multimillionaires? Well, he's

4:19

351st in the rich list and he's probably got

4:21

hundreds of millions rather than billions,

4:23

but he's got enough millions to bankroll

4:26

Brexit, which he did at the referendum.

4:29

And he's also... he gave a loan

4:31

to the nutty MP

4:34

Bridgin. Andrew Bridgin.

4:37

Mr. Quotable. Mr. Quotable is

4:39

also a complete COVID vaccine

4:41

denier and he has given him

4:43

a loan of nearly four million,

4:46

I think, or under written a loan. That's

4:49

a lot of money for Andrew Bridgin. A lot of money. And

4:52

so he's a sort of home for... I

4:55

was going to say, lost causes, except they won

4:57

Brexit. But it... of

5:00

all the causes to support in the world, Lawrence

5:03

Fox and his nutty opinions

5:05

and, of course,

5:07

it takes us back to a few months ago

5:09

when these people with nutty opinions were all over

5:11

the GB news to be replaced by more people

5:14

with nutty opinions. Well, this is true, Alan, but

5:16

as you and I know, having dealt a lot

5:18

with libel in our years as

5:20

editor and libel lawyers, you

5:22

do have to be extremely careful about

5:24

words and labels. And

5:27

I would suggest that the last person of

5:29

true fame who used the word pedo as

5:31

an attack was Elon Musk. And he got

5:33

away with it, didn't he? I believe... It

5:35

was in the American courts because the American

5:37

courts are different from indeed the

5:40

British courts. Anyway, tiny violin for

5:42

Lawrence Fox. I

5:44

mean, tiny. Microscopic. Yeah, in an

5:46

orchestra of one violin. Take

5:55

out a digital subscription to Prospect and

5:57

enjoy a one-month free trial to our

5:59

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6:01

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There's no commitment, you can cancel at any time.

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To take advantage of this offer, visit our

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website or get your favourite search engine and

6:13

search for quotes. Prospect

6:15

Magazine subscription quotes. Well

6:22

Alan, it's almost certainly going to be

6:24

an election year. So what

6:27

the media is saying about the

6:29

various parties and policies is

6:31

very important. But also, where

6:33

the conservative media stands

6:36

in relation to the present

6:38

SUNAC administration, and

6:40

whether it's changing. And you

6:42

spotted a very good column by

6:45

Andrew Marr the

6:47

other day in the New Statesman, talking

6:49

about this shift from

6:51

conservative to hard-right

6:53

media. Yeah, it was

6:55

a very interesting piece by Andy, and he's

6:58

also done it in the form of a

7:00

YouTube video for those who prefer

7:02

to watch rather than

7:04

read. And he's looking at the

7:06

battle for the telegraph. He's looking at

7:09

how the telegraph is increasingly not, if

7:11

it ever was, well actually

7:13

I think it was, the House organ

7:15

of the Tory party. How

7:17

it's flirting with reform. He's

7:20

looking at GB news,

7:24

which I think is increasingly sort of

7:26

edging towards reform in its

7:28

totally impartial way. And

7:32

there are things like the spectator, there

7:34

are things like talk

7:36

TV that we might come onto. And

7:39

all in all, he's drawing a

7:41

picture in which the

7:43

Tories who generally come election time

7:45

could rely on at least half

7:47

the British press to

7:50

swing in behind them is now not looking

7:52

at all that way. And of course there's

7:54

a position Rupert Murdoch will come on to

7:56

speak about. Well, as you'd

7:58

expect, Alan. introduce an

8:00

economic dimension to this discussion. As

8:02

you have seen in the last

8:05

few months, there have been some

8:07

pretty serious layoffs in general

8:10

in newspapers, some of the web

8:13

offerings too. The papers

8:15

are struggling with their subscription model,

8:17

how to have another leg of

8:19

growth after pretty successful moves and

8:22

this would have obviously include the

8:24

telegraph to build a paid-for

8:27

model. People are looking at

8:29

different ways, different offerings. Second,

8:32

what's interesting and this pertains to the future

8:34

of the telegraph, there are

8:36

some outside investors, notably this

8:38

group from America, Redbird, backed

8:40

by Abu Dhabi money, Shake

8:42

Money, to take the

8:45

conservative telegraph brand and

8:47

build it out internationally, seeing

8:50

a potential success in America. And

8:52

this is also different

8:54

but a truly international

8:57

conservative brand is not

8:59

a sort of UK Tory brand. You may

9:01

well need a bit of the nativist

9:04

mix. One thing that intrigued

9:06

me in Andrew's piece is

9:09

this question of metrics and it's

9:11

a subject I'd like us to come back to

9:14

in our future podcast. But

9:16

I think what Andy is saying, and we're

9:18

about to discuss all this with David

9:20

Aronovich, is that

9:22

in an era when you can immediately

9:24

see what your readers are thinking and

9:27

reading and how much they're reading and

9:30

what they're switching off and when they're

9:32

canceling their subscriptions, the

9:34

idea that a newspaper becomes in

9:36

a sense a prisoner to its

9:38

consumers is

9:41

an interesting one and it cast

9:43

my mind back to the podcast that we did on

9:45

Fox News where Fox News, at the

9:48

moment they started criticizing Donald Trump,

9:50

saw their subscribers and their viewers

9:53

disappearing. That's

9:56

not why we watch you. We watch you

9:58

because you are a supporter. of Donald

10:00

Trump and it's a sort of intriguing

10:03

thing where the power begins to shift

10:05

to the consumer of news.

10:07

Always worried me a little bit. I mean

10:09

obviously at the Financial

10:11

Times and others that followed, Guardian

10:13

was obviously a standout difference. The

10:17

paid for model required you

10:19

to really know who your readers

10:21

were. You wanted them to resubscribe

10:24

and you found that you knew lots

10:26

and lots about them

10:29

and our metrics were about engagement.

10:31

So it's not just clicks but

10:34

how much time you were spending. But

10:36

I never wanted that to become or to

10:38

get into a situation where you were literally

10:41

as you say prisoners to

10:43

that audience. I saw the job

10:45

as one providing serendipity, not just

10:48

a narrow offering. And

10:50

second, you almost had

10:52

a duty to come up with ideas,

10:54

journalism, which would challenge the

10:56

reader rather than just reinforce

10:59

their basic interests and

11:01

prejudices. Yeah, I always remember Tina Brown's

11:03

phrase, you have to bite

11:05

the hand that reads you. If

11:09

you just give them what they're interested in, it

11:11

can make for quite a dull magazine

11:14

or newspaper or TV station. So

11:16

you have to be provocative. It's

11:20

just an interesting trend and it'll be

11:22

interesting to see what David Ronovitch makes

11:24

of that thesis. So

11:30

we're very pleased to be joined now

11:32

by David Ronovitch, former Times columnist. We'll

11:35

give a plug for his sub stack at

11:37

the end of this program. But

11:39

who's been monitoring the

11:42

right and the press for a long time. And

11:45

I suppose my first question, David, you've

11:47

read this piece by Andrew Marr. Do

11:50

you agree that something new

11:52

is stirring in the undergrowth that

11:54

the picture that he's describing is

11:56

changing? Yeah, I think it is

11:58

really very interesting. I mean, what

12:01

he's describing essentially is a kind of

12:03

exploded Fox News. In other words,

12:05

there's kind of the different bits of Fox News

12:07

are kind of separated on different

12:09

media outlets across the kind of

12:12

the UK firmament from the Telegraph

12:14

to GB News with maybe talk

12:16

TV stuck in there and the

12:18

mail and so on. And

12:20

in that what he's describing is a

12:22

kind of combination of interest and

12:25

ideological position which

12:28

may or may not coincide with

12:30

a need to support the Conservative Party

12:32

at an election. That's essentially what he's

12:34

describing. In other words, this

12:36

constellation is now kind of floating free

12:39

of its total association with Conservative Party

12:41

interests. Now, the first thing, obviously, that

12:43

both of you will recognize is that

12:46

a lot of this happened also in

12:48

1997, actually. In

12:50

1997, the Sun famously said that it was backing

12:53

Blair because they could see he was going to

12:55

win, so they did. But

12:57

also there was within the kind of commentary of

12:59

some of the Conservative papers a degree

13:01

of hostility, if not

13:03

hostility ambivalence towards John Major as

13:05

being an ineffective successor

13:07

to the sainted Margaret Thatcher. In

13:10

other words, he was not really

13:12

worthy of her. And that the Conservative

13:15

Party would never really kind of retain

13:17

the place that it needed to

13:19

and that they wanted it to until

13:21

this moment had been lost and essentially

13:24

the party brought back to its Thatcherite

13:26

self. And I found myself on

13:29

programs before and just after the

13:31

1997 elections with sort of big hitters

13:33

like Simon Heffer, et cetera, who were

13:36

incredibly unpleasant about the Conservative Party and

13:38

frankly slightly delighted that Labour was going

13:40

to get in because only under this

13:42

basis could you kind of get

13:45

back to the business of the Conservative

13:47

Party becoming itself again. And

13:49

so there's an element of that, which is if

13:51

you like a kind of retread of that. And

13:54

then there's the bit that Andrew talks about, which

13:56

may be regarded as newer, which

13:58

has something to do with the political side. with the way in which

14:01

newspapers and these

14:03

new 24-hour news outlets operate.

14:06

The only question that arose in my mind really

14:08

at the end of it was I

14:11

could see its capacity to inform

14:14

that relatively small number of people

14:16

who are the electorate within the

14:18

Conservative Party for leadership. What

14:21

I'm not at all clear about is that

14:23

this constellation has anything like the influence that

14:25

it would have had back in the mid-90s.

14:28

David, yes, I agree on 97. There

14:30

was also a certain personal

14:32

animus towards Major, slight

14:35

snootiness that he wasn't eaten,

14:38

Bailial, Oxford, and Downing

14:40

Street. But I'd like to

14:42

go back to ideology and

14:44

to ask you, if you think about it, Britain

14:47

often imports political

14:50

trends, media trends from America. We

14:52

all know about the Reagan tax-cutting

14:54

revolution, the Reagan Thatcher

14:57

liberalisation deregulation of the 80s,

15:00

which you alluded to. But now, can

15:02

we see the influence

15:05

of the alt-right, the

15:07

Trumpist tendency in

15:09

Conservative media in Britain?

15:11

The short answer is that you can see

15:13

it all over the place. The second element

15:15

of this is to ask ourselves how powerful

15:17

it actually is and what kind of appeal

15:19

it has. And I suppose at this point,

15:21

we ought to kind of recognise that what's

15:23

being played for now is not what happens

15:26

before the next election. I mean, I think

15:28

we've all cottoned on for some time

15:30

now, that what's being done here is

15:33

essentially the planning for the

15:35

Conservative succession, at

15:37

which point when a major political

15:40

party has happened to label with

15:42

Corbyn, actually, when a major political

15:45

party is captured democratically, usually by

15:47

vote of its members, but nevertheless

15:49

captured by a particular wing, then

15:52

in that case, that wing can

15:54

expect far more support from the general

15:57

run of supporters of that party than they

15:59

would ever have. have got otherwise. And that

16:01

is the preparation which is going on. So

16:03

Andrew in his piece talks about if you

16:05

like the kind of the Braverman succession,

16:08

which supposedly happens after the next

16:10

election, according to Nadine Doris. Anyway,

16:13

it's all a plot to get

16:15

Kemi Badenoch to be leader after

16:17

the Tory defeat at the next

16:19

election. As far as I can

16:21

tell a plot that goes back to even before

16:23

Kemi Badenoch was born. So it's really deep state

16:25

stuff at this. Obviously, he's

16:28

problematic in the first place because we're just simply not

16:30

America. And the ways in

16:32

which Britain is not America are quite

16:35

significant. The second thing is

16:37

that there's an awful lot riding

16:39

for them on the culture wars.

16:41

And as we've seen from Ron

16:43

DeSantis campaign, even in the

16:45

States, the culture wars which are fought at

16:47

the kind of level and ferocity and the

16:50

stupidity that we don't usually manage to get

16:52

to, you know, unless you talk about a

16:54

few people standing outside a drag queen storytelling

16:56

in burnt oak or somewhere, it hasn't got

16:58

the same kind of pull over here.

17:01

So again, you push yourself back into

17:03

the conditions of a new Labour government

17:05

coming in and finding itself in a

17:07

very difficult series of economic positions, finding

17:09

it very, very difficult to improve a

17:11

lot of the British people in any

17:14

kind of significant way early on. And

17:16

that point being very

17:18

potentially vulnerable to a

17:20

big movement from the

17:23

populist right, that

17:25

essentially says here are some

17:27

solutions to creating better

17:29

conditions for our people that haven't

17:32

been tried yet and so on,

17:34

rather than the tired duopoly of

17:36

the old conservatives, as they were

17:38

and Labour as it is now.

17:40

And there are people who prepare

17:42

themselves for taking this position. I

17:44

mean, you know, there's a kind

17:46

of bevy of small conservative groups,

17:48

as you know, now, which have

17:50

kind of been created since that

17:52

National Conservatives Conference. We have the

17:54

new conservatives who essentially are the

17:56

National Conservatives. They were the people who were there, but

17:58

they call themselves the new conservatives. economically,

18:01

it's supposedly more kind of dirigiste,

18:03

more corporatist. There's a fancy for

18:05

that amongst some writers on

18:08

the right. There's the

18:10

popular conservatives, the so-called pop cons.

18:12

There's this body that seems to

18:14

be funding Lord Frost's endeavors. And

18:17

this is really where Andrew Mahr had his

18:19

takeoff point, wasn't it? With that huge pole

18:21

on the front

18:24

page of the Telegraph and immediately

18:26

underneath it, a big interpretation by

18:28

Lord David Frost, the never elected

18:31

leader in waiting or actually, he's more

18:34

kind of Warwick Kingmaker, isn't he? Really?

18:36

I mean, he's kind of sort

18:38

of second class Cardinal Richelieu. Yeah, is

18:40

that what I do? That's what he

18:42

is. I kind of like to think

18:44

of them sort of, you know, hopping

18:46

from weak Lancastrian to poor Yorkist, etc,

18:48

in a desperate attempt to try and

18:50

control the future of England, and

18:52

so on and never kind of quite getting there

18:54

except Lord Frost doesn't even have quite the kind

18:57

of, you know, battleground gravitas. I mean, as far

18:59

as I know, Frost has never been fought in an

19:01

election. His rise is really rather

19:03

kind of extraordinary, but there is a front

19:05

page of the Telegraph. So they've given us

19:07

essentially the Telegraph gave itself over at this

19:09

moment to a poll and

19:12

an interpretation of a poll that essentially

19:14

said, this Prime Minister is absolutely useless

19:16

and it's not until we get back

19:19

to the real verities of the Tory

19:21

party, whatever those are, because actually

19:23

they're not agreed upon. And given

19:26

that actually sooner can't possibly be

19:28

the person who they are

19:30

demanding, this can only be dealt with

19:32

by a leadership change. And given that

19:34

a leadership change isn't going to happen

19:36

this side in the election, again, we

19:38

go back to it, we're really talking

19:40

about what happens on the other side.

19:42

There were three groups of media figures

19:45

in Andrew Marsby's. There was a sort

19:47

of previous generation, let's call them the

19:49

Hartwell group, Lord Hartwell, who used to

19:52

own the Daily Telegraph who

19:54

owned the Telegraph, maybe for social status,

19:57

for access and to make

19:59

money. was not really interested

20:02

in power plays within conservatism.

20:07

Then there's the sort of Daco group of

20:09

newspaper technicians who

20:12

are much more ideological but also

20:14

technocrats. They're very good at putting

20:16

together newspapers and they've spread out

20:18

through feet street. So you've got

20:21

Ben Taylor at the Sunday Times, you've

20:23

got Tony Gallagher at the Times, Chris

20:25

Evans at the Telegraph. They're a kind

20:28

of new breed of newspapermen who don't

20:31

like mixing with politicians and

20:33

don't particularly like politicians. Then

20:37

you've got the new ideologues and I

20:39

think of people like Paul Marshall who's

20:41

one of the bidders to own the

20:43

Telegraph and David Frost

20:45

and these people who see themselves

20:47

as the king makers. If

20:50

you look at those last two groups, do

20:52

you think that analysis is right? There's a

20:55

sort of mixture of the taker clan and

20:57

these people who really want to own newspapers.

21:00

Yeah, I think there's clearly some

21:02

truth in it. Although the idea

21:04

that Tony Gallagher working as he

21:06

does for News UK is an

21:08

entirely and totally independent figure who

21:10

goes uninfluenced by what goes on

21:12

around him is an interesting one

21:14

and I can't claim with certainty

21:16

to contradict it but it certainly

21:18

isn't borne out by recent history

21:20

but with Rupert trending

21:23

towards his centenary etc. and having

21:25

taken his – and since

21:27

actually he was the one of the Murdochs who used

21:29

to come round to newsrooms etc. and

21:31

pop in from time to time

21:33

rather alarmingly, then in that case

21:36

it may well be that somebody

21:38

like Gallagher or Taylor are completely

21:40

given their ideological heads. You

21:44

can't really argue that Kelvin McKenzie of The Sun

21:46

prior to 1997 and his

21:49

famous Bucket of Orgies he poured over the

21:51

head of John Major was kind of being

21:53

clubbable really. So there have been more

21:55

and less clubbable – I mean the Telegraph has been famous

21:57

for its clubability but one of the things that I think

21:59

about the One of the things I think that

22:01

you notice with this kind of ideological shift

22:04

is that even the kind of old Russian

22:06

Tories like that, there are exceptions, are

22:08

quite capable of making this ideological

22:11

switch towards Trumpism as a

22:13

kind of strange point of identification, really. In

22:16

other words, you find them agreeing with

22:18

things. It's like Boris Johnson endorsing Trump.

22:21

You find them effectively agreeing with things

22:23

they violently disagree with just two or

22:25

three years ago in order

22:27

to carve out a position for

22:30

themselves. I don't

22:32

know so much about the old school tie

22:34

versus the lean, hungry,

22:37

Cassius-type newspaper editors, but I do see

22:39

the daycareism. I remember the daycareism crept

22:41

in some time ago. I've just written

22:43

a piece for the British journalists and

22:45

reviewed about writing the sub-stack and what's

22:47

different. I realized that one of the things

22:49

that happened to me during my time as a columnist on the

22:52

Times was that daycareism in

22:54

terms of editorial intervention in

22:56

direct had become a really

22:58

significant factor over the course

23:00

of the last eight or nine

23:02

years, which hadn't been in

23:04

any of my previous relationships with newspaper

23:06

editors, including you, Alan, because there had

23:08

been a kind of different attitude towards

23:10

commissioning. And to the laissez-faire, I

23:12

just want to say something about Paul Marshall, however,

23:15

since Andrew Marr raised it.

23:17

And if you like what you might call

23:19

the kind of the billionaire intervention, which ranges

23:21

from Muscat X to Marshall at GB News

23:24

to whoever I can't remember off the top

23:26

of my head, the name of his partner

23:28

at GB News and so on is also a

23:31

hedgehog. The Gartum. Yeah,

23:33

the guy behind the Gartum, et cetera.

23:35

And also Marshall does Unheard. And

23:38

Andrew said, the thing about Paul

23:40

Marshall is he really believes in pluralism.

23:42

No, he doesn't. I mean, with great

23:44

respect, he's not putting his money into

23:46

Navarra media. His pluralism is only on

23:48

one side of the political spectrum. But

23:50

what he means by pluralism is giving

23:52

people on the right wing from the

23:54

kind of vaguely sensible to the utterly

23:56

bonkers, a platform on which to kind

23:59

of express themselves. That's what his

24:01

pluralism actually means. However reasonable

24:03

it is that he presents

24:05

himself. So he is highly

24:07

ideological, even if people kind

24:09

of quite like him personally. This is

24:12

media confidential, and coming up, more

24:14

on the disintegrating relationship between

24:16

the UK's right-wing media and

24:19

the Conservative Party, and

24:21

why that could have huge impacts on

24:23

the country. Welcome

24:36

to your daily affirmations. Repeat

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start, order half the banner to go to

25:02

monday.com. Over

25:30

on the Prospect podcast, a debate is raging. Next

25:42

month sees the release of a new film

25:44

called Argyle, and the rumour

25:46

mill has been working overtime with TikTok

25:48

sleuths convinced that the author of the

25:50

novel, Ellie Conway, is

25:52

a pseudonym for Taylor Swift,

25:55

Prospect magazines Ellen Halliday, Sarah

25:57

Collins, and Pete Huskin. examine

26:00

the evidence. I noticed a

26:02

video, Sarah probably might know the name

26:04

of the actual TikToker. The

26:06

original TikTok is Jessie Swiftok.

26:08

Basically someone put out the TikTok

26:11

video that said, is

26:13

the author of this book? A woman called Ellie

26:15

Conway, who we kind of already know is a

26:17

pseudonym. We know it's a pseudonym because we've sort

26:20

of been told, but also because

26:22

the backstory given to Ellie Conway is

26:24

just too generic in an

26:26

exciting way. She's meant to have

26:29

come from up down New York and have waitressed

26:31

and have written the book in between waitressing shifts.

26:34

It's just too stereotypical. So

26:37

the speculation on this TikTok video was,

26:39

is it actually Taylor Swift? And I

26:41

must admit, this is where I did get excited. It's

26:44

a really persuasive video. I was hooked. When Sarah

26:46

told me about the piece, I also went

26:48

and found one of the TikToks, I don't

26:50

know if it was the definitive one, but I was sold on the idea

26:52

to be honest. To find out the

26:54

truth behind the Taylor Swift rumors, follow

26:56

and subscribe to the Prospect Podcast, wherever you

26:59

get your podcasts. This

27:04

is Media Confidential with Alan Rusviger

27:06

and Lionel Barber. We're

27:09

discussing whether the UK's right wing media

27:11

is out of control, out

27:14

of conservative party control, to be

27:16

more precise, and how

27:18

that impacts our politics ahead of what

27:21

looks likely to be an extremely

27:23

consequential general election at

27:26

some point in the next 12 months. Our

27:28

guest today is David Aronovich. He's a

27:30

former Times columnist. He's presenter of BBC

27:33

Radio 4's Briefing Room. He's

27:35

the author of Voodoo Histories, and

27:37

he's now on Substack with notes

27:40

from the underground at davidaronovich.substack.com. David,

27:44

it's time to talk about the tabloids.

27:47

Two particular newspapers,

27:50

The Sun and The Daily Mail.

27:52

Sun, as you said, under Kelvin

27:54

McKenzie, famously proclaimed

27:56

that it was there that won

27:58

the election in 9-10. 1992,

28:01

but actually it's been in steady decline since

28:03

then. I wonder how you

28:05

would fit the sun into in

28:07

a debate or has it become

28:09

somewhat peripheral? And then the male,

28:12

which does seem still

28:14

to pick a punch even

28:16

post-Daco. And of course, they

28:18

seem to be keen to buy the telegraph.

28:20

And so I'd be interested in what you

28:22

think about what that would mean about the

28:25

concentration of media power. It would simplify all

28:27

our lives if they bought the telegraph in

28:29

many ways, because then it will

28:31

be kind of in one place like News UK is already

28:33

kind of one place and then we could analyze them in

28:35

the same kind of a way. And I

28:38

cannot see what is important about the

28:40

sun now. I don't

28:42

know what is supposed to be important about it.

28:45

I don't mean it has no influence at all

28:47

upon the certain section of the population. But it's

28:50

probable that quite a significant proportion

28:52

of its still existing readers, and

28:54

there are so many fewer than

28:56

there once were, don't

28:59

read the paper for the politics at all.

29:01

Consequently, I mean, we never had to have

29:03

this conversation about the mirror, because we know

29:05

that the mirror isn't that important and so

29:08

on, in terms of its actual influence. I don't

29:10

mean that what it says should be disregarded as

29:13

anybody else would be disregarded. The thing

29:15

is, I think that I've come to

29:17

realize really, you probably both absolutely understood

29:19

this before being editors yourselves and before

29:21

looking at the figures, is

29:23

that essentially, with the exception of the BBC,

29:25

we are a nation of niches. What we

29:28

tend all have to do these days to

29:30

do well is to maximize the

29:32

impact within our bit of the

29:34

niche market. It's incredibly difficult to

29:36

appeal to other bits and other

29:39

niches within the market. So that's

29:41

usually what's happening. So the moral

29:43

is probably the most successful in kind

29:46

of maintaining a sizeable niche. I don't

29:48

think, as far as I can see, the

29:51

Sun isn't particularly, and one of the reasons

29:53

the Mail is successful at the moment, of

29:55

course, is Mail online rather than the newspaper

29:57

itself. And then you have

29:59

businesses like, GB News and Talk

30:01

TV who have actually pretty low

30:04

audiences. They're also kind of niche,

30:06

but they then kind of push

30:08

very slightly beyond them in terms

30:10

of the national conversation when it

30:12

comes to their online presence. So

30:14

more people see them really in

30:16

little bits and gobbits than actually

30:18

take them in any kind of

30:20

significant way. And so I

30:23

would still be inclined to think that

30:25

the two ways in which something like

30:27

the mail influences the debate is firstly

30:29

directly because conservative members buy

30:31

it as they do the

30:34

telegraph. And secondly, because organisations

30:37

like the BBC, to a certain

30:39

extent, overrate how important

30:41

the mail is because of the

30:43

way in which it turns up

30:46

in their algorithms and so on.

30:49

One of the things I've just again in

30:51

this British journalism review that I'm about sub

30:53

stack is when you write the sub stack,

30:55

the metrics you get back from it are

30:57

absolutely staggering. This is just a kind of

30:59

personal level. You know, who does

31:01

what, when, who reacts to what with

31:03

what kind of speed, who's active, who's

31:06

not active, number of active viewers, not

31:08

active viewers and so on. And

31:10

I think until we kind of we

31:12

have oversight of these kind of metrics,

31:14

I can see what's really going on,

31:16

it's sometimes quite difficult to make a

31:19

judgment about who's influencing what

31:21

exactly. I was going to ask you

31:23

about that, David, because we've talked a

31:25

bit about the influence from above. But

31:27

in a sense, the influence from below is

31:30

equally interesting in a day in

31:32

the age when editors can now

31:34

absolutely see when their readers are

31:36

switching on or switching off. We

31:38

saw it with Fox News. The

31:41

moment they stopped backing Trump or

31:43

questioning Trump, the viewers just deserted.

31:45

So I suppose the question is,

31:47

to what extent if you've got voters

31:50

who are deserting the Tories for

31:52

reform, the extent to which Tory

31:54

newspaper editors can resist that? Yes,

31:57

I don't I. This is an

31:59

interesting question because. Those all that is

32:01

dependent upon whether Nigel Farage goes

32:03

back into politics because I was

32:05

my own prejudice is that reform

32:07

is not going to be any

32:09

kind of really significant factor, except

32:11

insofar as it's saucepans off. A

32:13

couple of percentage points from the

32:15

tories are on the part of

32:17

boat as you probably otherwise wouldn't

32:19

have voted. I told I cannot

32:21

see a situation whereby, but maybe

32:23

I'm lucky in imagination and and

32:25

remote didn't go this far as

32:28

a situation where the telegraph comes.

32:30

Out of an upstairs option on

32:32

says vote reform. I don't think.

32:34

probably. Still, that's where they think the majority

32:36

of their readers on Identikit where where they

32:38

are. And it's a have to say There

32:41

are some kind of contradictions here. I mean,

32:43

when I was given my cards last year,

32:45

it was already. That's On is one of

32:48

the relatively few sort of labor leaning colonists

32:50

in the paper. Now they're almost all conservatives,

32:52

have one stripe or another on the times

32:54

are on the times and this. despite that,

32:57

the find that the figures showed that up

32:59

to seventy percent of times leaders were not

33:01

going to support the Conservatives are the election.

33:04

In other words whatever the reason was

33:06

and it maybe that was just too

33:09

expensive that's quite possible the eventual my

33:11

hands to become very boring and that's

33:13

also like lifeless of know that sizes.

33:16

Ah, But dating sites I angle for

33:18

that was I got it says I'm

33:20

I'm happy that I'm But anyway that

33:23

was. but that was decision that less

33:25

than the rest of very many people

33:27

actually facing to writing in a way

33:29

that I knew a majority. Yeah, I'm

33:31

certainly not paralyses readers will. One thing

33:34

now was I to understand this to

33:36

be ideological was I to understand this

33:38

to be in a purely administer to

33:40

well the fact that he has never

33:42

spoke to me man I never found

33:44

that in that added opportunity. to discover

33:47

a by that's got the of my chest

33:49

but in other words the seem to be

33:51

simple things kind of going on at the

33:53

same time then and her tells us that

33:55

there was a lunch between the storm a

33:57

team island or gallagher and how the other

34:01

I would imagine Keir Starmer went to

34:03

that lunch with a very, very long

34:05

spoon indeed. And he

34:07

could afford to have actually a very

34:09

long spoon indeed. What's going

34:11

to be much, much more important is

34:14

maintaining the objectivity

34:16

and journalistic integrity of the

34:18

BBC, which is by

34:21

far and away the biggest

34:23

journalistic enterprise in Britain, and

34:25

so on, and also of ITN and

34:27

also to a certain extent of Sky

34:29

News, which is why the government is

34:31

beating up and bullying the BBC so

34:34

much right now, it

34:36

seems to me at least, softening them up

34:38

ahead of the election. Just a quick

34:40

question on media consolidation. Do

34:42

you buy this story that Rupert

34:45

Murdoch might be keen to buy

34:47

back Sky News from Comcast, which has

34:50

admittedly written down its value? And

34:52

then you think about Talk TV,

34:54

that was an experiment, which is

34:56

clearly loss making. Might there

34:58

be a big consolidation coming up? It would certainly

35:00

make sense if there were. Some

35:02

of these things can work on relatively

35:04

small numbers. If

35:06

you work those people, if they're keen

35:09

enough on you, that's the Fox News

35:11

experience, etc. It can't grow

35:13

and grow and grow and grow, but you can do

35:15

well enough out of it, I would say. I

35:18

don't know what your opinion about that is, but you can

35:20

actually kind of, you can make it last. And you can

35:22

do well enough out of it, and you can have some

35:24

kind of fun with it. What you're not going to do

35:26

is run countries off the back of it, really.

35:29

I think those days are probably over.

35:32

And that is rather worrying as well, because actually, instead of

35:34

the big finger of Kelvin McKenzie

35:38

and Rupert Murdoch hanging over, at least

35:40

you could see where the finger was.

35:43

Now everything is so disparate and

35:45

exploded, increasingly exploded, that it's very,

35:47

very difficult to see where any

35:49

kind of significant power lies. You

35:52

see people edging towards

35:54

bits of power and kind of wanting

35:56

it, but you can't claim that somehow

35:58

makes an absolutely critical... difference to what

36:00

happens. I mean, I don't know whether

36:02

you agree with that, but the

36:05

monoliths of the past are broken.

36:07

The media of the past are

36:09

broken. What we have is an

36:11

incredible mosaic of

36:14

people in the field. Yeah, the fragmentation

36:16

of modern media is definitely here

36:19

to stay. I want to come back to

36:21

this question of control and right-wing media out

36:23

of control. I mean, partly this

36:25

is because we're at the fag end of

36:28

a government's 13 long years of

36:30

conservative rule, but it

36:33

is partly this ideological shift

36:35

that you've described, isn't it?

36:38

Where do you think the government

36:41

will stand regarding the media

36:43

and the run-up to this campaign? Who will they

36:45

care about? How will they try and get back

36:47

in the tent? It's weasels in a sack time,

36:50

isn't it, really? I mean, what you're watching there

36:52

is them kind of taking lumps out of each

36:54

other as they attempt to discover a winning

36:57

strategy with the certain knowledge, and we

36:59

all have this certain knowledge, that the

37:01

only thing that they have is immigration.

37:04

In the end, every single one of their

37:06

kind of radical approaches to this, that, or

37:08

the other, all their alternatives will come down

37:10

to making as much of

37:13

the election about immigration as they possibly

37:15

can because there is nothing else for

37:17

them to do. And in that, the

37:19

government will concur with the right-wing sections

37:21

of the press and,

37:24

you know, the shock jocks on

37:27

GB News and Talk TV. I

37:29

think that's what it's going to be. And when

37:31

the election is not

37:33

about immigration and after it's lost,

37:35

then the real battle begins. And

37:38

for us, the question of how best

37:41

Britain recovers, because you put your finger,

37:43

I think, on it, which is we've

37:46

had a kind of detachment of

37:48

people from their traditional

37:50

political loyalties, partly because that's a

37:52

natural process, but also partly because

37:54

ever since 2008, we have

37:58

been undergoing a slow, low

38:00

and steady decline, decline in public

38:03

services, a decline in civility, a

38:05

decline and so on. Certain

38:08

things we haven't been declining. I shouldn't exaggerate. I

38:10

was listening to a very interesting program about where

38:12

crime statistics actually were at the moment and we're

38:14

not all banging and knocking each other over the

38:16

head and murdering each other, etc. So this isn't

38:19

happening. But

38:22

nevertheless, there is a very significant feeling

38:24

of malaise. And if we just take

38:27

the obvious example of

38:29

the way in which young people, and

38:31

it's clear from all the polling, genuinely do

38:33

feel left out from the

38:36

settlement, from the political

38:38

economic settlement and so on, I

38:40

think you can say that unless something is

38:42

done which feels like it

38:44

addresses that and they feel it's addressed, then

38:46

in the next four or five years some

38:48

of these kind of actors that

38:51

we're talking about could become much more

38:53

significant. Let the battle commence. Thank

38:55

you so much David for joining us on Media

38:57

Confidential. You're very welcome. Well

38:59

Alan, listening to David Arunovich there, it

39:01

was all done and dusted. Conservatives

39:04

heading for a vast, humiliating

39:06

defeat, Labour coming back and actually

39:09

it's all about the future of

39:11

the Conservative Party after

39:13

the election. That's very much how it

39:15

feels that people are priced in the

39:17

result of the coming election and they

39:19

know there's going to be a vast

39:22

ideological battle for what is left of

39:24

the Conservative Party and

39:26

how it's going to be rebuilt and in

39:28

whose mould. And I think that's

39:30

certainly at the heart of some of these

39:32

people who are jostling for

39:34

position in the right-wing media, that position

39:36

that Andrew Marr describes. David

39:39

really thinks even if Farage joins

39:41

Reform UK, comes back into politics, he

39:44

doesn't think that they're going to come

39:46

up with a substantial

39:48

showing in the next election and

39:51

that this opinion poll that was showing them

39:53

in the late teens, maybe even catching up

39:55

with the Conservative Party, that's not going to

39:57

happen either. Well very dependent on Farage.

40:00

I think the polling we had from Peter Kellner

40:02

in the prospect showed actually it could

40:04

be as much as a 10% swing depending

40:07

on whether Farage is in or not.

40:10

We didn't really get on to this with David, but I

40:13

think Labour is in a slightly ticklish

40:15

position here because Labour

40:18

is or was

40:20

committed to Leveson 2, that's the bit

40:22

of Leveson inquiry that

40:24

got scrapped and

40:27

if not actually reinstating the

40:29

Leveson inquiry. There's this arcane

40:31

little bit of legislation,

40:34

the so-called Section 40, which

40:37

was needed in order to

40:39

create a Leveson approved regulator.

40:41

Now the

40:44

Tory parties has promised to

40:46

reveal this. I think 100% of the national

40:48

press wants this repealed and

40:51

yet there's quite a lot of pressure from

40:53

within Labour to say no, no, we shouldn't

40:55

repeal it and we

40:58

should keep the pressure on to have a different kind

41:00

of regulator for the press. That's

41:03

a tricky one for Stalmer because I'm sure

41:05

when he went for his pre-Christmas lunch with

41:08

the Sun, it would have been strongly

41:13

implied that

41:15

Murdoch's support for Stalmer

41:18

could be dependent on

41:20

is the attitude he takes towards this.

41:22

Well, you and I may disagree on

41:24

this, but I think reopening Leveson 2,

41:27

which is the criminal part of the inquiry linked

41:30

obviously to a future regulator,

41:33

would be onerous. No, I

41:35

think that horse has bolted. That horse

41:37

has bolted, but then you could, the

41:39

question of regulator, I mean the issue

41:41

here is do you want as a future

41:44

Prime Minister to declare

41:46

war on the major newspapers

41:49

and news organizations in this

41:51

country when you've

41:53

caught, as David again correctly said,

41:56

a huge challenge in restoring

41:58

a decent Leveson. level of growth,

42:01

jobs and prosperity to this

42:03

post-Brexit country. I think

42:05

it's the last thing that Stalmer would

42:07

want. I'm just saying that the

42:10

whispers I'm picking up from within Labour is

42:13

there's quite a significant head of

42:15

steam from people who've

42:18

been beaten up by the British press. You

42:20

know, it's not like Labour's

42:22

got many friends in the press. It's a distinguished group.

42:24

I mean, it includes you, it includes me. I have

42:26

my two pages in the Daily Mail

42:28

back in 2016. You're

42:30

quite the enemy of the

42:33

people we are in

42:35

some lines. But

42:38

I just think the serious point is that Labour has

42:41

got a problem or Stalmer has got

42:43

a problem with his peers as well

42:45

as his MPs. Well, I'm going to

42:47

give some free advice to Keir Starmer.

42:50

Just focus on the regulator Ofcom.

42:53

Make sure it does its job

42:55

policing the likes of GB News

42:58

and use the institutions that you

43:00

have at your disposal before

43:03

opening a new front on the media. If

43:09

you've got any questions for us about the media, email

43:11

them to mediaconfidential, all one

43:14

word, at prospectmagazine, also

43:16

alloneword.co.uk. And

43:19

we'll answer a few of them in a

43:21

future episode. Thank you for listening to Media

43:23

Confidential, brought to you by

43:25

Prospect Magazine and Fresh Air. The

43:28

producer is Danny Garlic. Remember

43:30

to listen and follow us wherever you

43:32

get your podcasts. And we're on Twitter

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slash X2, at

43:37

MediaConfPod. More invaluable

43:39

media industry analysis will be coming

43:41

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