He remains largely unknown to the general public, but in British conservative circles, Paul Marshall has already made a name for himself. With the acquisition announced on Tuesday, September 10, of the Magazine The Spectatorhe confirms his ambition as a right-wing press boss. This 65-year-old businessman, who amassed a fortune at the head of hedge funds, was for a long time an unconditional supporter of the Liberal Democrats, before supporting Brexit and then turning completely to the right.
His foray into the media dates back to 2017, when he financed the creation of the news site UnHerdwhich claims to be intended “to people who dare to think for themselves”In 2021, this son of a Unilever executive, a graduate of Oxford University and the European Institute of Business Administration Insead, invested 10 million pounds sterling (11.8 million euros) in the launch of the television channel GB News, the “British Fox News”. He will reinvest more than 40 million pounds in 2023, to mop up his losses.
After a difficult start, GB News has found its audience and, from time to time, surpasses that of BBC News, the BBC's 24-hour news channel. Although TV stations in the United Kingdom are required to be politically neutral, the channel unashamedly displays its affinities, having recruited as its star presenters the main figures of the British right, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former minister under Boris Johnson, and Nigel Farage, the leader of the eurosceptic and conservative Reform UK party.
“Best written” in the English-speaking world
With the acquisition of the Spectator for the considerable sum of £100 million, Paul Marshall has acquired the most influential title on the British right. The world's oldest weekly newspaper (it has been published continuously since 1828) has served as a political springboard for quite a few heavyweights in the Conservative Party, including Boris Johnson (who was its editor-in-chief between 1999 and 2005). The evenings of the newspaper, which prides itself on being “best written” from the English-speaking world, are the most popular in Westminster.
Paul Marshall, who some already consider a new Rupert Murdoch, is also in the running to acquire the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraphtransferred at the same time as the Spectator by the Barclay family to the Emirati group RedBird IMI (in 2023), but put back on the market a few months later, after the British government blocked the transaction, refusing to let these media fall into foreign hands.
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Source: Lemonde
