Politics thread warning! UK to ban foreign state ownership of newspapers.

Well I hope that doesn't include Tharg the Mighty as he did a fine job with 2000AD.

But not ownership by non dom billionaires.....

Some BS that sounds good on the surface and is probably about making it more likely GB News backing multi-millionaire Tory donor and right-winger Paul Marshall gets The Telegraph.

The current Tories would be just fine with state-owned media generally.

The alternative for ownership of The Telegraph is far worse. It’ll move from slightly racist uncle to full on protofascist. But it will be British protofascist, so that’s something.

IMO we are more at threat from the western oligarchy than we are from forign states.

As above, this is simply because the tories are terrified that the telegraph might not be as right wing if bought out.
Bunch of shysters

and tiktok must be sold or banned in 6 months in north america :0(
the meta microsoft alphabet apple cartel clearly arent happy

But not ownership by non dom billionaires…..

There's an irony there.

Horses and stable doors spring immediately to mind

Basically, they don't want the press owned by anyone who might dare disagree with them.

Seemingly not a problem when the son of a former KGB director (made a Lord by Boris) was given majority ownership of London's daily newspaper.

Or when a UAE 'think tank' run by a right-wing billionaire funded a political propaganda channel in the UK...

I'm not sure they want to deal with 'foreign influence', as much as foreign influence from people who might not agree with them.

I'd almost prefer UK media to be run by foreign states than foreign private individuals and shadowy corporations, trusts and think tanks. At least the former tends to have some diplomatic relationship with the UK government.

this is simply because the tories are terrified that the telegraph might not be as right wing if bought out.

Early in the OP's linked article it mentions that Labour intends to back the proposal.

It seems fairly reasonable to me that a foreign government should not own a major UK daily newspaper.

On the issue of the Daily Telegraph's current political stance a couple of days ago I was reading an article of theirs covering Lee Anderson's defection to Reform UK, it included a lot of comments from their readers, I decided after reading it that the Daily Telegraph is probably now more right-wing than the Daily Mail.

This the article btw:

"Why Telegraph readers support Lee Anderson’s move to Reform UK
Our exclusive poll finds 81 per cent who responded supported the former Tory Party deputy chairman’s defection"

https://archive.li/2024.03.12-182549/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/12/reform-uk-lee-anderson-general-election-conservatives-poll/

Sebastian says:

“Lee Anderson was elected as a Conservative and discovered the party he joined was a Left-wing, high tax, mass migration liberal party. He is right to retain his seat and represent what the people voted for.”

Surely, limiting the influence of foreign governments on UK newspapers, is a good thing.

It's not difficult to imagine what a malevolent force could do to the UK via a carefully choreographed series of headlines and stories.

STW Politics thread bingo:

Brexit [ ]

The evil Tories [ ]

Gammons [ ]

Fascist [X]

Racist [X]

Our NHS [ ]

Brexit again, wah waaah waaaaaah [ ]

Right wing [X]

Not doing too well but it's early days

Morning grimep, you ready for a day of spewing bile fuelled nonsense online and clubbing freeloading immigrants landing on the SW coast?, pick you up in the van in 20mins? - we'll have to swing by Wetherspoons beforehand as they have an all you can eat English breakfast deal and a pint of warm piss for £1.99 if you can sing the national anthem word for word.

tiktok must be sold or banned in 6 months in north america

Not correct; the House voted in favour but the Senate haven't yet said if they will take this up for debate; if they do and if they vote in favour, the bill then lands on Biden's desk and he's said he will sign if it gets that far.

What's notable is that Byte Dance runs multiple versions of TikTok, each one 'tailored' to meet the regulations of the country in question; for example, the version which is accessible in China has multiple restrictions built into it.

I don't think this should be controversial idea. I mean you can make the case that lots of the right wing papers have billionaire dominated ownership, and that they largely support [what's left of] the Tories, and the physical news media is unbalanced, but on the face of it asking that ownership of the UK paper should be restricted to citizens of the UK makes sense.

Let's be fair this is just a plot by the evil tories to ensure that their pet backers keep ignoring the reality of the huge screw up of brexit, and also to make sure they can keep inciting the gammons to back them.
Plus the rich individual backers probably have a stake in the creeping privatisation of the nhs so why wouldn't they want to try to keep the evil tories in power

but on the face of it asking that ownership of the UK paper should be restricted to citizens of the UK makes sense.

And yet the last Labour government was happy that the Sun and the Times should be owned by a non-UK citizen.

I guess it depends on whether they back the political party trying to achieve power or not.

Sebastian says:

“Lee Anderson was elected as a Conservative and discovered the party he joined was a Left-wing, high tax, mass migration liberal party. He is right to retain his seat and represent what the people voted for.”

My dad's nom de plume seems to be Sebastian.

The fundamental issue is who controls media of all kinds that influences our opinion forming and ultimately who we vote for. Whoever owns newspapers to social media outlets are buying power and influence. Normally its to benefit them and facilitate the way they want things.

The really bad thing these days is the ease of distributing a message across a massive audience and the science behind that message.

So beware those who have/own a high percentage of the media, copies sold, clicks  and eyeballs.....they don't have to be foreign to be a concern.

*cough* Murdoch

Yeah, foreign states are the problem here. Sure.

interest interview with Mr Zucker 0n the the New Agents yesterday.... he's not going to be a happy man and claims it's not IMI is not the UAE government.

Can anyone explain why it is more or less unacceptable for a major newspaper to be owned by a foreign state versus a foreign person?

I really don't see why one is particularly better or worse than the other. Foreign states are run by foreign people, after all. Genuinely don't understand the hair the tories are trying to split here, other than that the specific foreign state they are currently contemplating legislating against is (in their view) less acceptable than the specific foreign owners that already exist.

 really don’t see why one is particularly better or worse than the other.

tory hypocrisy it's just the wrong sort of foreigner  and they don't want a blanket on all foreigners that might upset the Dirty Digger.

and tiktok must be sold or banned in 6 months in north america :0(
the meta microsoft alphabet apple cartel clearly arent happy

*rolls eyes*

It’s got nothing to do with them. All American social media platforms are banned in China, but TicTok, which is effectively backed by the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party, is allowed in America.
And why, exactly do you care?

Genuinely don’t understand the hair the tories are trying to split here

That's the point, there isn't one - Conservatives specifically don't want Redbird IMI (Abu Dhabi based) to buy the Telegraph. That's all there is to it. They're trying to dress it up as something else.

Can anyone explain why it is more or less unacceptable for a major newspaper to be owned by a foreign state versus a foreign person?

I think probably a more useful question to ask is why would a foreign government want to own the Daily Telegraph?

The Daily Telegraph makes about £30-40 million profit per year which would obviously be very attractive to a foreign individual such as Rupert Murdoch, but a foreign government? It would represent peanuts to most.

Foreign governments by definition have an agenda, they are in effect solely motivated by politics.

There is no doubt that foreign individuals can also be motivated by politics but for a greedy individual such as Rupert Murdoch the primary motive is money/profit. In fact he will sometimes tune his political stance to suit what he believes benefits his business the most.

I can't think of any reason, beyond wanting to influence UK politics, why a foreign government would want to buy the Daily Telegraph. Especially a wealthy Middle Eastern government.

The Daily Telegraph makes about £30-40 million profit per year which would obviously be very attractive to a foreign individual such as Rupert Murdoch, but a foreign government? It would represent peanuts to most.

[..]

I can’t think of any reason, beyond wanting to influence UK politics, why a foreign government would want to buy the Daily Telegraph

That seems oddly limited of you, but for a bit of context, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is about a trillion quid and 10,000 equity investments making the average investment around 100 million even if you ignore the large chunk in real estate and other things. Some are in media companies. Do you really think this minuscule proportion of their wealth is targeted at influencing foreign governments rather than just being part of a diverse portfolio of investments? What are your reasons for saying this?

Foreign states already pay for greenwashing (and other types of washing) in the Torygraph, this would just make it easier for them to do it. It would also allow them to steer a narrative to what they wanted.

As an example, you don't like the way a trade deal is going? Use the paper say what a good/bad deal it is. Don't like a politician? Why, look at all those journalists that can dig up/publish dirt on them (or threaten to)! Need a boost to tourism in your country? Go mad with reviews (which Lebedev  has done with Saudi).

This shit has been going on for years with the Digger's titles and I think other people want in on that. States are no different if they have things they want to steer/influence.

I strongly recommend Private Eye's coverage of this.