How Rishi Sunak is losing the right-wing media | Andrew Marr | The New Statesman
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses the complex and rapidly changing relationship between UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the traditionally Conservative-supporting right-wing media. It describes how papers like The Telegraph and broadcasters like GB News are increasingly critical of Sunak, nudging their readers/viewers towards the further-right Reform UK party. The script argues this reflects genuine anger within the Conservative grassroots and predicts it may spark a future leadership contest, installing a more populist leader who struggles with moderates in Parliament. It concludes by saying such media hostility to a flailing government is rare and signals growing authority issues at the heart of politics.
Takeaways
- 📰 The right-wing media, traditionally supportive of the Conservative Party, is increasingly hostile towards Rishi Sunak and his government.
- 🔍 An opinion poll in the Daily Telegraph suggested a significant decline in Conservative Party support, predicting a landslide victory for Keir Starmer's Labour Party.
- 🗳️ The detailed Telegraph poll allowed MPs to see the potential impact on their individual constituencies, creating unease within the Conservative Party.
- 📈 Reform UK, a right-wing party, is gaining traction among traditional Conservative voters and media, potentially leading to a significant shift in UK politics.
- 🔥 The Telegraph's critical stance towards the Conservative Party marks a departure from its historical alignment and could influence the party's future direction.
- 🌐 The potential takeover of the Telegraph by a consortium involving foreign investors is a pivotal moment for British journalism and its independence.
- 💼 Modern newspaper editors, driven by data and reader feedback, are less politically aligned and more focused on audience interests, impacting their editorial choices.
- 📺 GB News, a right-leaning broadcaster, debates openly supporting Reform UK, which could further influence the political landscape.
- 🤝 Rupert Murdoch's News UK is reportedly aligning with Keir Starmer's Labour Party, indicating a shift in media support towards the likely next government.
- ⚖️ The changing media landscape reflects a broader shift in politics, with the media seeking new alignments amidst a perceived decline in Conservative Party authority.
Q & A
What is the relationship currently like between Rishi Sunak's government and the conservative media?
-The relationship is increasingly hostile, with conservative media becoming more aligned with the right-wing and critical of Sunak's government ahead of the next election.
How damaging was the recent Daily Telegraph opinion poll for Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives?
-It suggested the Tories were heading for their worst election defeat since 1906, which is very damaging for Sunak. The poll predicts a 1997-style wipeout with Labour having a 120 seat majority.
How could Reform UK pose an existential threat to the Conservative Party?
-Reform UK is polling around 12-13% currently. Richard Tice believes with Nigel Farage's return they could get 16-17% by Easter. If they reach 20% and rival the Conservatives, it could split the right-wing vote and wipe out the Tories.
Why might the Telegraph be attacking Rishi Sunak's government when they may need its help against the Redbird takeover bid?
-The new generation Telegraph editors like Chris Evans are data-driven and focused on readership. Readers are shifting to Reform UK, so the Telegraph reflects that in coverage critical of Sunak, despite needing government help against Redbird.
How could Paul Dacre and Rupert Murdoch's media operations impact the next election?
-Dacre admires the Telegraph's Chris Evans, so if his Mail group bought the Telegraph he'd strongly influence the next Tory leadership race. Murdoch has apparently done a deal with Starmer's Labour, sensing they will win.
What is GB News' stance and how could it damage Rishi Sunak?
-GB News owner Paul Marshall favours pluralism. It regularly features Reform UK members and is debating backing them fully. This platform for criticism of Sunak from the right is very difficult for Number 10.
Why can't Rishi Sunak rely on traditional right-wing media allies?
-Times/Sun are distancing from Tories as Murdoch courts Starmer. Telegraph is reflecting its shifting readership. Unherd/GB News back Reform UK. Most media follow where power is heading, which is away from Sunak.
What change is happening in the new generation of newspaper editors?
-They are data-driven and focused on readership over political links. Constant reader feedback means they reflect readers shifting to Reform UK rather than supporting Sunak like old Tory-linked editors.
How could the media landscape explode the right of British politics?
-If Reform UK rivals Tories in polls, right-wing media backing them could help wipe out centrist Conservatives at the election. Then activists would elect a populist leader, shunned by Tory MPs.
What is driving the changes in the media's relationship with Rishi Sunak's government?
-There is a radical loss of authority at the center of politics. The media reflect this by moving away from a failing Tory party and exploring alternatives like Reform UK or Labour instead of dutifully backing Number 10.
Outlines
😕 Conservatives face hostile right-wing media
Paragraph 1 discusses how the conservative party is facing increasing hostility from the right-wing media. It describes how a Daily Telegraph poll predicted a devastating defeat for the Tories in the next election. Lord Frost and Reform UK are putting pressure on the conservatives on issues like immigration. There are predictions that Reform UK could reach 17% in the polls by Easter, threatening the Tories.
🚨 Telegraph faces authoritarian takeover bid
Paragraph 2 talks about the takeover bid for the Telegraph and Spectator by an authoritarian consortium Red Bird IMI. Many Telegraph editors oppose this bid. The government can block the deal and the Telegraph needs Rishi Sunak's support. But the Telegraph is still attacking Sunak due to a generational change in editors like Chris Evans who are data-driven and don't have close ties to the Tories.
📰 Conservative hostility across right-wing media landscape
Paragraph 3 discusses the wider British media landscape which is increasingly hostile to Rishi Sunak and the conservatives. GB News owner Paul Marshall is debating backing Reform UK. News UK and The Sun have seemingly reached an agreement with Labour's Keir Starmer. Number 10 faces a loss of authority and increasingly radicalized conservative activists.
😔 Media changes reflect and drive conservative party decay
Paragraph 4 concludes that the media changes are not a conspiracy but reflect loss of conservative authority, changing business models and ownership. This will likely lead to the election of an authoritarian populist Tory leader who will clash with Tory MPs, creating further party decay.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Rishi Sunak
💡Conservative Media
💡Reform UK
💡Daily Telegraph
💡Media Ecosystem
💡GB News
💡Extinction Event
💡Election Polls
💡Immigration Policy
💡Media Ownership
Highlights
Right-wing media becoming increasingly hostile towards Conservative party
Daily Telegraph published devastating poll showing Conservatives facing wipeout
Lord Frost actively involved in commissioning anti-Conservative poll
Poll intended to pressure PM on immigration stance before Rwanda vote
Telegraph has never been uncritically loyal to Conservative leaders
Telegraph seems to be nudging readers towards Reform UK, away from Conservatives
Reform UK could be level pegging with Conservatives by summer
Curious Telegraph is attacking PM when it needs government help against UAE bid
New generation of data-driven, non-establishment editors less biddable
Readers moving to Reform UK, loops back into Telegraph editorial decisions
Potential Telegraph bidder also owns large stake in pro-Reform GB News
GB News debate on fully backing Reform UK over Conservatives
Cabinet minister predicts media pushes activists to Reform UK after election
If Reform UK gets 20%+ support, could be extraordinary right-wing explosion
Seeing what happens when government loses authority - media don't tie to losers
Transcripts
conservatives have never seen the
right-wing media so powerful and also so
hostile to their
[Music]
party this week I'm writing about the
extraordinary and fast changing
relationship between rishy sunak Downing
Street ahead of the election and what
used to be called the conservative media
but increasingly is more the right-wing
media we are seeing a very important
cult and political change going on and
if there is a mood of paranoia in
Downing Street is not entirely
unreasonable this part of the story
really goes back to rumors spreading on
the evening of Sunday January the 14th
about the following day's Daily
Telegraph Splash story this featured a
frankly devastating opinion poll
suggesting the Tories were heading for
their worst fall in the vote since 1906
what the newspaper Splash called a 1997
Style wipe out and with Kia starmer's
party having 120 strong Landslide
majority after the general election now
often if you're trying to gauge the
emotional intended impact of a newspaper
story you have to look at the picture
beside it and the picture here showed a
particularly uncomfortable sweaty
looking Richie sunak staring out of the
paper as if he was sucking a lemon it
was fairly clear what was going on but
lest there be a cintilla of Doubt Lord
Frost one time big backer of Boris
Johnson and now one of the arch critics
of Rishi sunak inside the conservative
party wrote a piece in the paper
boasting that he himself had been
involved in commissioning and analyzing
the poll an analysis by the way that
Yuga who carried out the poll then
argued about it seemed to push the
conservatives even further towards a
reform UK kind of attitude towards
immigration and was clearly intended to
put particular pressure on the Prime
Minister on the week of the big Rwanda
Bill vote indeed Lord Frost said that
unless the Tories were going to be
tougher still on immigration they faced
what he called an Extinction event at
the hands of Reform UK at this point you
might be wondering what all the fuss is
about after all there have been an
absolute slew of polls all showing much
the same thing Rishi sunak conservative
party in real real deep trouble and if
this particular attack was intended to
stiffen the resolve of the so-called
Spartans on the right of the party then
it completely failed because on the
Rwanda vote they marched up to the top
of the hill took one look at the
opposition in terms of numbers and ran
straight back down again and Rishi sinak
won that vote rather successfully and
yet the telegraph poll was about more
than a snapshot this was a very very
detailed analysis which can be broken
down constituency by constituency
allowing individual Tory MPS to look in
black and white at the likelihood of
them being defeated in the forthcoming
general election and for a parliamentary
party which is already divided tired and
demoralized this was a pretty
devastating act by The Daily Telegraph
now of course the telegraph or as it's
often widely known the Tory graph has
long been a kind of Bible of the
conservative family but it has never
been kneejerk loyyal to Tory Prime
Ministers I'm thinking for instance of
the terrible experience that John Major
had during the M Revolt at the hands of
the telegraph you you wouldn't feel when
if you went to see Mr major that um it
was very important to straighten your
tie before you went into the room I'm
thinking of the really severe impact the
telegraphs exposure of the expenses
Scandal had on a slew of senior Tory MPS
and I'm thinking more recently of the
expose of Matt Hancock this has never
been a paper which looks at number 10
asks what they want to read and then
prints it it's never been like that
however these times are different and
much more dangerous first of all the
conservatives really are facing a
devastating general election if the
polls are right and second unlike normal
circumstances there is a real genuine
right-wing Challenger to the
conservative party under Richard TI and
reform UK and what the telegraph seem to
be doing is nudging towards reform UK
and away from the conservative party and
that is what is really spooking number
10 now I've spoken to Richard Ty and he
points out reform UK backed by lots of
people in the media and now at around 12
to 133% in the polls he does not believe
that Nigel farage will be able to resist
coming back as he says onto the pitch
for an election campaign and he thinks
that by itself is probably worth another
two or three points to reform UK he
believes that reform UK could be up to
16 17 points by Easter and by the summer
could even be get this level pegging
with the conservative party and he too
using the same language interestingly as
Lord Frost talks about an extinction
level event facing the concern
conservatives at the general election I
think we are seeing essentially the sort
of the dying days potentially the last
ever majority conservative government so
this stuff is real you can understand
why people around rishy sunak are pretty
spooked what's really curious about the
telegraph's handling of all of this is
the timing because the newspaper
including its stablemate The Spectator
faces a takeover bid from a company
called redb bird IMI which is a joint
Consortium between American Venture
capitalists that's the red bird bit and
The Sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi
under shik mansur who is also by the way
the owner of Manchester City now the
emiratis are authoritarian they have no
great love or tradition of free speech
it would be the first time that the
Sovereign wealth fund of another
government and an authoritarian
Government tried to buy a major
newspaper in the UK and a lot of people
at the top of the telegraph including
the current editor and previous editors
and most of the senior editorial staff
absolutely loathe the prospect of being
taken over by Red Bird IMI and I think
even if the Emirates and the Americans
tried to stuff their mouths with gold
many of them would simply walk away if
that happened it's a very very important
moment for British journalism generally
and the Curious bit of this of course is
that who can protect the telegraph well
basically only the government the
culture secretary Lucy Fraser is taking
the bid in for analysis and scrutiny the
competition and markets authorities and
other people will be involved in all of
that but the important point to remember
is that Telegraph needs rishy sunak
needs his government so why is it
attacking him quite so vigorously right
now now I think the answer to this is
nothing to do with conspiracy it's about
the personalities involved and it's
about a really important change in the
ecosystem of the media generally so the
personalities is first of all in the old
days the editors of the Daily Telegraph
Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph were part
of the higher ecosystem of the concern
conservative family they'd go to the
same clubs at lunchtime have a few gin
and tonics and a decent bottle of Claret
with a cabinet minister roll back to the
office and then at the weekends they'd
be off in the country shooting or riding
or whatever with conservative ministers
they were part of that family the new
generation are completely different what
you need to remember is that right
across Fleet Street at the moment what
used to be called Fleet Street Paul
daker the former editor of the Daily
Mail has seeded a series of younger
journalist as editors who are
phenomenally influential and they're all
in a sense quite similar there is Tony
Galler at the Times there is Ben Taylor
at the Sunday Times and indeed there is
Chris Evans at the Telegraph and these
are datadriven ferociously hardworking
editors who disdain kind of political
and Social Links are very very
suspicious of friendly smiling
politicians of any stripe there's a
story about Chris Evans which may be
apocryphal but I think has a kernel of
Truth which is that at one point in the
middle of a very very busy evening
Newsroom when everyone's rushing around
his wife and his small children appear
and she's brought them in for him to say
good night to because that was the only
way he was ever going to see them that
gives you some sense of the driven
quality of this group of journalists
they are not the kind to be won over by
a gy and tonic in a cabinet Minister's
office so that's one really important
change these are DEA driven editors of a
different style less biddable than the
old Tory editors but they not only vaker
driven editors they're data driven
editors because modern newspapers work
on a kind of endless loop they're all
online subscription models so they're
getting feedback in almost real time
about how many readers are reading what
and what articles they're spending time
over that plus the endless emails and
letters coming pouring into an editor's
office gives a modern editor a much
closer sense of what their readers are
really interested in and really think
and the truth is that a lot of these
readers a lot of the the traditional
Daily Telegraph audience are moving to
reform UK they have given up on Rishi
sunak they don't like him they feel that
conservatives have failed over the last
13 or 14 years and they're looking for a
right-wing alternative and this kind of
Loops back into the editorial decisions
taken by the Telegraph and other
newspapers and that is not something
that number 10 can do anything about and
that means these people are much less
susceptible to being wooed by Tory
cabinet ministers or indeed by the Prime
Minister him himself now Paul daker
really admires evans's editing of the
telegraph we know this because the The
crucial Mark of how much Paul daker
likes somebody is whether he invites
them to the rugby at Twickenham and then
offers them lunch from the the boot of
his car in the car park afterwards and
Evans is almost always I'm told there
and this really matters again because if
Redbird uh the Abu Dhabi group don't
take over the telegraph who does someone
has to win and one of the answers might
well be Lord rir proprietor of the Daily
Mail uh employer of Paul deer and indeed
now the propriety of the I and the metro
newspaper and many others so this is
somebody who would then if he had the
telegraph as well he's got a tabloid
he'd then have a broad sheet it's quite
a good fit he would have an enormous
influence on the next Tory leadership
campaign so there is the really really
important if slightly Tangled story of
the telegraph red bird shik Manu Lord
ramir Paul daker and the rest of it that
is what number 10 is focusing on but
there's another aspect to this because
if it isn't Lord rir who may well Tire
of the chase I'm told it's a Paul
Marshall he is the hedge fund manager
who owns the post liberal website
unheard uh again very very well read
inside the conservative family and he's
also a 41% owner of GB news now GB news
the upstart Insurgent television ision
company on the right of British politics
there's a lively debate inside GB news
about whether to come out full on for
reform UK rather than for the
conservatives both Nigel farage and
Richard T the current leader of Reform
UK are regulars on GB news they're part
of the lineup and the lineup also
includes critics of rishy sunak inside
the conservative party like Jacob rmog
and the recently retired or resigned or
sacked Deputy chairman Lee Anderson so
it's not a favorable Pro Tory
organization in any sense now Marshall
is a really really interesting figure
for a long time he was inside the
liberal Democrats he worked for Charles
Kennedy when Charles Kennedy was libdem
leader um and he was part of the orange
book group of liberal Democrats but he
fell out with them over brexit he became
a big brexit backer people who know him
very well say to me that he is not a
political extremist but he's obsessed by
plurality and pluralism and different
views being expressed in the broadcast
media which is why he has been such a
backer of GB news now GB news has its
own culture War there's the kind of
loudmouth would be American shock jock
characters we all know about some of
whom have been fired already and there
are much more conventional if right of
Center professional journalists involved
there too so there's a really
interesting debate going on if GB news
comes out for reform UK fully then that
will be quite a big moment and very
difficult for number 10 because they are
speaking to a lot of conservative
activist people who have been inside the
conservative party and who are now
disillusioned this is not just a media
story this is very much a major
political story too okay okay okay you
may now be thinking that's all very well
Andrew Mar GB news the Telegraph and the
mail but what about the really big
player news UK Rupert Murdoch's
operation inside Britain well I'm told
that news UK has made not one but two
attempts to buy GB news not so far
successful and it's also pretty clear to
me that news UK the Murdoch operation
has done some kind of deal with Kia
starmer's labor party Rupert Murdoch has
always been somebody who looked to where
power is moving and moves alongside and
in this case it's very clear to him I'm
sure that starmer is likely to be the
next prime minister he like Bal daker is
obsessed by stopping any kind of big
public scrutiny of the role of the press
in this country uh a so-called leveron 2
inquiry particularly into links between
the police and the journalists and I
would not be at all surprised if he has
not had some kind of commitments from
Kia st's office apparently Kia starma um
and his top people had a very very
agreeable evening dinner at Scots
restaurant in Mayfair with the News
international team with the people at
the top of the Sun newspaper and others
just before Christmas draw your own
conclusions so if you scroll back and
you think about number 10 and you're
richy sunak you say okay well because of
that I can't rely on the times and the
Murdoch stable for reasons we've been
talking about I can't rely on the
telegraph I can't rely on GB news I
can't lie on unheard or many of the
other uh right-wing websites you're
starting to look at a media landscape
which is surprisingly hostile one
cabinet minister told me he could not
remember a time when the British media
in terms of the conservative party was
both so powerful and so hostile and he
predicted that in the end what would
happen is a lot of conserv ative
activists would follow a more reform UK
style of politics in the Telegraph and
and other places and GB news and after
the defeat at the election would elect a
much more populist authoritarian
right-wing leader for the conservatives
of the kind we've seen before and the
kind those activists want and that
person would then go back to Westminster
to discover surprise surprise a
conservative parliamentary party we
didn't really like them and so we're
going to go yet through yet another
circle of conservative Decay and failure
but this time driven in many ways by
parts of the media in the end I don't
think this is a story of conspiracy
whatever number 10 believes I think this
is a story about really important
changes in the way newspapers operate
and their relationship with their
readers and increasingly their viewers
as well and changes in ownership too I
think what we're really seeing here is
what happens when there is a radical
loss of authority at the center of
politics one of the things that happens
is the media don't like tying themselves
to a loser and start to look around for
the next game in town it might be a
different party it might be a different
leader it might be a different style and
I think that's what's really happening
here but the effect will be pretty
devastating I think for middle of the
road or Centrist conservatives very very
Grim for them indeed in terms of the
leadership the the other contenders
including people like SOA braan and kemy
badok do not want to go too early kemy
badok was apparently recently heard in
the House of Commons saying that she
wanted rishy to own the defeat um and
when it comes to reform UK we just don't
know what's going to happen but if
reform UK do indeed helped by people in
the telegraph helped by people at GB
news get up to sort of 20 points or even
north of that and do start to rival the
conservatives I think we're heading for
an absolutely extraordinary explosion on
the right of British politics thank you
for watching I would really love to know
what you think so please if you can
leave a comment below and don't forget
to subscribe so that you can get videos
from the new Statesman as soon as
they're released
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