IMI-OH-MY…
A DEAL was triumphantly announced last week that will – possibly – bring an end to the two-year limbo in which the
Telegraph
has been since it was seized by Lloyds bank from the on-their-uppers Barclay family in June 2023. But it has involved spectacular reverse-ferrets from almost everyone involved.
When the Barclays did a behind-the-scenes deal with RedBird IMI, an investment vehicle 75 percent funded by the government of the United Arab Emirates, it united in rage all the other bidders in the aborted auction process, the editorial staff on the paper and politicians. Their strident opposition was perhaps best expressed by the thundering op-ed Conservative Iain Duncan Smith penned for the Telegraph itself in December 2023: “We can’t let a foreign state take over the Telegraph – the free press lies at the heart of our democracy, and we cannot permit that to be undermined.”