Who are the Barclay brothers? - BBC News BBC News Who are the Barclay brothers? By Tom de Castella BBC News Magazine 20 February 2015 Close share panel Image copyright Getty Images The owners of the Daily Telegraph, Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay, are under the spotlight after allegations over the way their newspaper treats stories that impinge on commercial interests. To say the Barclay twins do not seek publicity is more than an understatement. They are billionaires. They own the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator, but rarely give interviews. And now the resignation of one of the Telegraph's political columnists, Peter Oborne, backed by a searing article in which he accuses the paper's management of colluding with advertisers, has put them into the limelight they appear to hate. In his piece for Open Democracy , Oborne wrote: "After a lot of agony I have come to the conclusion that I have a duty to make all this public. There are two powerful reasons. The first concerns the future of the Telegraph under the Barclay Brothers." The second related to the wider free press, Oborne wrote.

His chief accusation was that the Telegraph's management had not given prominence to the tax scandal at HSBC because of commercial interests. Oborne also accused the Telegraph of removing a news story from their website about HSBC. The Telegraph has denied Oborne's allegations. "Like any other business, we never comment on individual commercial relationships, but our policy is absolutely clear. We aim to provide all our commercial partners with a range of advertising solutions, but the distinction between advertising and our award-winning editorial operation has always been fundamental to our business. We utterly refute any allegation to the contrary. It is a matter of huge regret that Peter Oborne, for nearly five years a contributor to the Telegraph, should have launched such an astonishing and unfounded attack, full of inaccuracy and innuendo, on his own paper." Surprisingly little has been written - in any depth - about the Barclays. Few photos exist of them on news picture libraries. One of the few shows them formally dressed, having just been knighted by the Queen. That was in 2000. One of the images from that occasion shows them playing up for the cameras, with Sir Frederick fussing over Sir David's hair. Image copyright Rex Features The twins were born in 1934.

The Sunday Times in 2003 described them coming from "humble origins as two of 10 children born to a Scottish travelling salesman and his wife in a house in Hammersmith, west London, which they shared with several other families". Their father died when the boys were 12, and around the age of 16 the boys set up a painting and decorating business, later moving into property. In 1955 David Barclay married Zoe Newton, a trained ballerina who became a model. She was only 4ft 11in (1.5m) tall but became one of the most highly photographed models of her time. She appeared in television advertisements for the Dairy Council as the "drinka pinta milka day" girl. "The photographers were never far away and David was horrified when it was suggested their son Aidan should be marketed as the first 'milk baby'," the Sunday Times reported. Zoe had two more sons - Howard and Duncan - and gave up her modelling career to concentrate on her family. In the 1970s, Sir Frederick reportedly married Hiroko Asada.

Her son from a previous marriage, Ko, followed his stepfather's example and is now a successful businessman, the Times has reported . Frederick joined David to buy up old boarding houses in London and turn them into hotels. Moving into media in 1992, Frederick and David bought the European newspaper from Robert Maxwell. In 1995, they bought the Scotsman. But their big newspaper purchase came in 2004 with the acquisition of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph from Hollinger, following the forced departure of Conrad Black. The Spectator magazine is part of the same group. Image copyright PA The brothers also own mail order firm Littlewoods, bought in 2002 for £750m. That purchase brought controversy after they ended the firm's tradition of giving 1% of profits to charities. But the knighthoods that came in 2000 were for services to charity. By this point their foundation was thought to have donated about £40m to charity and medical research. After the ceremony Sir Frederick said: "Giving to charity is an important part of our life. It's an obligation to society.

If you've been fortunate, it's a duty to give to those less fortunate than yourself." They bought the Ritz Hotel in London in 1995. Other businesses they have owned include the Ellerman shipping and brewery group in the 1980s, and more recently the Handbag group of websites. They currently own the delivery firm Yodel. Today the brothers are said to be worth £6bn, according to the Sunday Times Rich List . Noting their homes in the Channel Islands and Monaco, the Guardian has described them as "tax exiles". But Sir Frederick has been quoted before as saying he and his brother left the UK solely for health reasons. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption They bought the Ritz Hotel in London in 1995 In 2012, the BBC's Panorama covered the tax arrangements of their hotel, the Ritz, reporting that it had paid no corporation tax in the UK by legally claiming reliefs for the 17 years since the Barclays took over. At the time Sir David said: "We have always acted in a responsible way with regard to taxation and have never been involved in any tax avoidance scheme.

We are not responsible for corporate taxes in the UK and are unaware what tax is paid on the Ritz." A rare insight into Sir Frederick and Sir David's lives came in a 2012 court case relating to their attempt to gain control of Coroin, a rival hotel group. Sir Frederick, in a witness statement, told the court: "I am now into my late seventies. As I explain below, I am effectively retired. I keep no work diary, have no business secretary and received or reviewed little or no documentation relating to the matters in issue in these proceedings (given the limits of my involvement and the fact that I do not use email or text messages)." The court also heard that his brother Sir David had undergone heart surgery in 2011 and was not medically fit to give evidence. Sir David's son Aidan has long managed the family's businesses in the UK. The brothers are often called reclusive - a term they are said to dislike. After their knighthood ceremony, during what was thought to be their first face-to-face interview for 30 years, Sir David said: "We're in a good mood today. We're giving you a lot of our privacy.

We're not secretive, just private." In another interview in 2004 to discuss their purchase of the Telegraph group, Sir David said "I don't think I've done anything dirty in my life." Even in 1999, when the Queen opened the new offices at the Scotsman, which they owned, there was no big speech. "Frederick Barclay's only comment as he stepped into a chauffeur-driven car was that he had enjoyed a 'good, good' day," reported the Daily Mail. The paper, which said they'd been "lured out of hiding" to meet the Queen, noted that the last photograph of them together had been from 25 years before. Image caption Peter Oborne's resignation has put the brothers in the spotlight The brothers have bases in Monaco and Brecqhou, one of the Channel Islands. In 1993 they bought the 32-hectare (80-acre) island for almost £3.5m. They built a castle , designed by Quinlan Terry and planted vineyards, an olive grove and an organic market garden.

In 2008 they announced they were closing down all their businesses on the nearby island of Sark with the loss of about 100 jobs, a sixth of the island's population. They later reopened the businesses but there's been a long-running dispute with some locals over the brothers' desire to change the island's system of governance. Both brothers are in Who's Who, but with little of the detail that marks many of the entries in the reference work. There are no recreational interests listed. Sir David's entry mentions that he was a member of the Sark parliament until 2008. Both brothers were appointed "Ambassador Extraordinaire at Large for Economic Development in Monaco" in 2010. In 2003 the Sunday Times reported that the Barclays had asked their friend Lord McAlpine, who died last year, to write their biography.

The piece quoted McAlpine's own memoirs where he had written warmly of the brothers: "I have spent many hours in their company and never cease to wonder at their insights… The two brothers are not secretive, just immensely private in how they earn their money and how they give it away." The following year a Times diary piece shed further light on the book: "The intention is that this will never be published, though, but will be for the private amusement of the twins and their families." The Barclays make no political pronouncements. But they were close to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who spent the months prior to her death in April 2013 staying at the Ritz as their guest. In March last year the pair won a £1.2bn payment from HMRC over miscalculated tax . But it is their ownership of the Telegraph that has prompted the biggest headlines. Longstanding Telegraph writer Bill Deedes, described the new regime as a "stinking mob" to friends. In a memo, passed to his biographer only to be published after his death, he wrote: "It struck me that what the Barclays saw in the Telegraph was an asset that in the right hands could be turned into a more profitable business...

The intention to change the nature of the Telegraph into something more profitable had to be shielded from readers who loved it most for its unprofitable qualities which they saw as a stand against the vulgarity of the red tops." Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption The brothers have caused controversy on the island of Sark But there were those who praised the Barclays for taking on the paper, and it was reported at the time that staff at the Telegraph Group much preferred them to the various other potential bidders . Staff turnover ratcheted up. Between 1923 and 2004 just six men had edited the Telegraph, Oborne pointed out. Since the Barclays took over 11 years ago there have been half a dozen more. The departure of Tony Gallagher as editor in January 2014 was particularly surprising for media observers. It followed the announcement of 80 editorial redundancies in March 2013. There was then the creation of 50 new digital journalism jobs , leading to a picture of upheaval and constant change. A former senior Telegraph journalist says that when the Barclays arrived no-one knew why they'd bought the Telegraph. Unlike Rupert Murdoch, say, they had no "feel" for newspapers.

One staff member noted privately that previous Telegraph owners had ended up with peerages. The Barclays were said to have hated the "country club" atmosphere of the paper. They brought in Murdoch MacLennan from the Daily Mail to shake things up. Some of the moves were symbolic - alcohol was banned in the executive dining room. But the main changes were to staffing. Old correspondents left and a succession of digital thinkers were brought in, some of whom did not last long, the ex-Telegraph journalist recalls. The Barclays weren't much interested in what journalism the newspaper did. "I don't think they intervened very much [editorially]. It was mostly commercial stuff." The Spectator addressed the current row over Peter Oborne on its blog . There was no mention of the Barclays in the piece. At the bottom, one reader wrote: "I had a subscription to the DT for over 10 years, but cancelled it once the vandalism of the Barclay brothers became apparent. The current incarnation of the DT is an embarrassment to the memory of great writers like Bill Deedes." Roy Greenslade, the Guardian's media blogger, puts many of the ways the Telegraph has changed down to the brothers. "It's less comprehensive in news coverage than it was.

It's very very much more obviously a commercial operation. And less credible than it was." "There was a recognisable Daily Telegraph approach to daily news coverage." It was thorough and comprehensive, Greenslade says. He believes the Telegraph came to resemble "a feeble approach to doing a broadsheet Daily Mail". But in the past Spectator editor Fraser Nelson has praised the brothers for their non-interference. In an interview in February 2013 he said he had never met the brothers. His links were with Sir David's sons, Aidan and Howard, who were interested in politics but did not tell him how pieces should be written. "I often think how lucky I am to have them as owners; a magazine like ours could be easily run as an entree into society," Nelson said . The twins' wealth and their emphasis on privacy will continue to flavour coverage of the businesses they own. But for Sir David, talking on the day of their knighthood, theirs is a straightforward story.

"It's a great example of what can be achieved in this country from whatever background or education or humble beginnings." Barclay brothers buy Daily Telegraph | Daily Mail Online Next Barclay brothers buy Daily Telegraph The Barclay brothers have added the Daily Telegraph to their portfolio of UK newspapers after agreeing a £260 million takeover of Hollinger Inc. They announced the signing of an "irrevocable agreement" with Ravelston, owned by Lord Black of Crossharbour, to buy its 78% stake in the Canadian company. The deal was agreed in New York last night with ownership of Hollinger Inc transferring to Press Holdings International (PHI) - owned by Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay. It also gives them 73% of voting rights in Hollinger International, which owns the Telegraph Group in Britain, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Jerusalem Post. PHI has sent a letter to the directors of Hollinger International outlining reasons for the takeover, which include an improved ability to renegotiate debt. Substantial cost savings would be achieved in distribution, printing, and advertising across the newspaper titles of the enlarged group. The company also cites negative publicity surrounding a US investigation into payments to Hollinger International executives, including Lord Black who denies any wrongdoing.

Sir David said: "We believe this continued media controversy is significantly harming the public image and stock price of Hollinger International and undermining its credibility in the financial markets. "As part of the acquisition, the negative media attention should cease." The Barclay brothers currently own a number of newspapers in the UK including The Scotsman, Edinburgh Evening News, Scotland on Sunday and The Business. Why I have resigned from the Telegraph | openDemocracy Why I have resigned from the Telegraph Peter Oborne 17 February 2015 The coverage of HSBC in Britain's Telegraph is a fraud on its readers. If major newspapers allow corporations to influence their content for fear of losing advertising revenue, democracy itself is in peril. Five years ago I was invited to become the chief political commentator of the Telegraph. It was a job I was very proud to accept. The Telegraph has long been the most important conservative-leaning newspaper in Britain, admired as much for its integrity as for its superb news coverage. When I joined the Telegraph had just broken the MPs’ expenses scandal, the most important political scoop of the 21st century. I was very conscious that I was joining a formidable tradition of political commentary.

I spent my summer holiday before taking up my duties as columnist reading the essays of the great Peter Utley, edited by Charles Moore and Simon Heffer, two other masters of the art. No one has ever expressed quite as well as Utley the quiet decency and pragmatism of British conservatism. The Mail is raucous and populist, while the Times is proud to swing with the wind as the voice of the official class. The Telegraph stood in a different tradition. It is read by the nation as a whole, not just by the City and Westminster. It is confident of its own values. It has long been famous for the accuracy of its news reporting. I imagine its readers to be country solicitors, struggling small businessmen, harassed second secretaries in foreign embassies, schoolteachers, military folk, farmers—decent people with a stake in the country. My grandfather, Lt Col Tom Oborne DSO, had been a Telegraph reader. He was also a churchwarden and played a role in the Petersfield Conservative Association. He had a special rack on the breakfast table and would read the paper carefully over his bacon and eggs, devoting special attention to the leaders. I often thought about my grandfather when I wrote my Telegraph columns.

‘You don’t know what you are fucking talking about’ Circulation was falling fast when I joined the paper in September 2010, and I suspect this panicked the owners. Waves of sackings started, and the management made it plain that it believed the future of the British press to be digital. Murdoch MacLennan, the chief executive, invited me to lunch at the Goring Hotel near Buckingham Palace, where Telegraph executives like to do their business. I urged him not to take the newspaper itself for granted, pointing out that it still had a very healthy circulation of more than half a million. I added that our readers were loyal, that the paper was still very profitable and that the owners had no right to destroy it. The sackings continued. A little while later I met Mr MacLennan by chance in the queue of mourners outside Margaret Thatcher’s funeral and once again urged him not to take Telegraph readers for granted. He replied: “You don’t know what you are fucking talking about.” Events at the Telegraph became more and more dismaying. In January 2014 the editor, Tony Gallagher, was fired. He had been an excellent editor, well respected by staff.

Mr Gallagher was replaced by an American called Jason Seiken, who took up a position called ‘Head of Content.’ In the 81 years between 1923 and 2004 the Telegraph had six editors, all of them towering figures: Arthur Watson, Colin Coote, Maurice Green, Bill Deedes, Max Hastings and Charles Moore. Since the Barclay Brothers purchased the paper 11 years ago there have been roughly six more, though it is hard to be certain since with the arrival of Mr Seiken the title of editor was abolished, then replaced by a Head of Content (Monday to Friday). There were three editors (or Heads of Content) in 2014 alone. For the last 12 months matters have got much, much worse. The foreign desk—magnificent under the leadership of David Munk and David Wastell—has been decimated. As all reporters are aware, no newspaper can operate without skilled sub-editors. Half of these have been sacked, and the chief sub, Richard Oliver, has left. Solecisms, unthinkable until very recently, are now commonplace. Recently readers were introduced to someone called the Duke of Wessex. Prince Edward is the Earl of Wessex.

There was a front page story about deer-hunting. It was actually about deer-stalking, a completely different activity. Obviously the management don’t care about nice distinctions like this. But the readers do, and the Telegraph took great care to get these things right until very recently. The arrival of Mr Seiken coincided with the arrival of the click culture. Stories seemed no longer judged by their importance, accuracy or appeal to those who actually bought the paper. The more important measure appeared to be the number of online visits. On 22 September Telegraph online ran a story about a woman with three breasts . One despairing executive told me that it was known this was false even before the story was published. I have no doubt it was published in order to generate online traffic, at which it may have succeeded. I am not saying that online traffic is unimportant, but over the long term, however, such episodes inflict incalculable damage on the reputation of the paper. Open for business? With the collapse in standards has come a most sinister development. It has long been axiomatic in quality British journalism that the advertising department and editorial should be kept rigorously apart. There is a great deal of evidence that, at the Telegraph, this distinction has collapsed.

Late last year I set to work on a story about the international banking giant HSBC. Well-known British Muslims had received letters out of the blue from HSBC informing them that their accounts had been closed. No reason was given, and it was made plain that there was no possibility of appeal. "It’s like having your water cut off," one victim told me. When I submitted it for publication on the Telegraph website, I was at first told there would be no problem. When it was not published I made enquiries. I was fobbed off with excuses, then told there was a legal problem. When I asked the legal department, the lawyers were unaware of any difficulty. When I pushed the point, an executive took me aside and said that "there is a bit of an issue" with HSBC. Eventually I gave up in despair and offered the article to openDemocracy . It can be read here . I researched the newspaper’s coverage of HSBC. I learnt that Harry Wilson, the admirable banking correspondent of the Telegraph, had published an online story about HSBC based on a report from a Hong Kong analyst who had claimed there was a ‘black hole’ in the HSBC accounts.

This story was swiftly removed from the Telegraph website, even though there were no legal problems. When I asked HSBC whether the bank had complained about Wilson's article, or played any role in the decision to remove it, the bank declined to comment. Mr Wilson’s contemporaneous tweets referring to the story can be found here . The story itself, however, is no longer available on the website, as anybody trying to follow through the link can discover. Mr Wilson rather bravely raised this issue publicly at the ‘town hall meeting’ when Jason Seiken introduced himself to staff. He has since left the paper. Then, on 4 November 2014, a number of papers reported a blow to HSBC profits as the bank set aside more than £1 billion for customer compensation and an investigation into the rigging of currency markets. This story was the city splash in the Times, Guardian and Mail, making a page lead in the Independent. I inspected the Telegraph coverage. It generated five paragraphs in total on page 5 of the business section. The reporting of HSBC is part of a wider problem. On 10 May last year the Telegraph ran a long feature on Cunard’s Queen Mary II liner on the news review page.

This episode looked to many like a plug for an advertiser on a page normally dedicated to serious news analysis. I again checked and certainly Telegraph competitors did not view Cunard’s liner as a major news story. Cunard is an important Telegraph advertiser. The paper’s comment on last year’s protests in Hong Kong was bizarre. One would have expected theTelegraph of all papers to have taken a keen interest and adopted a robust position. Yet (in sharp contrast to competitors like the Times)I could not find a single leader on the subject. At the start of December the Financial Times, the Times and the Guardian all wrote powerful leaders on the refusal by the Chinese government to allow a committee of British MPs into Hong Kong. The Telegraph remained silent. I can think of few subjects which anger and concern Telegraph readers more. On 15 September the Telegraph published a commentary by the Chinese ambassador, just before the lucrative China Watch supplement. The headline of the ambassador’s article was beyond parody: ‘ Let’s not allow Hong Kong to come between us ’. On 17 September there was a four-page fashion pull-out in the middle of the news run, granted more coverage than the Scottish referendum.

The Tesco false accounting story on 23 September was covered only in the business section. By contrast it was the splash, inside spread and leader in the Mail. Not that the Telegraph is short of Tesco coverage. Tesco pledging £10m to fight cancer , an inside peak at Tesco’s £35m jet and ‘ Meet the cat that has lived in Tesco for 4 years ’ were all deemed newsworthy. There are other very troubling cases, many of them set out in Private Eye, which has been a major source of information for Telegraph journalists wanting to understand what is happening on their paper. There was no avoiding the impression that something had gone awry with the Telegraph’s news judgment. At this point I wrote a long letter to Murdoch MacLennan setting out all my concerns about the newspaper, and handing in my notice. I copied this letter to the Telegraph chairman, Aidan Barclay. I received a cursory response from Mr Barclay. He wrote that he hoped I could resolve my differences with Murdoch MacLennan. I duly went to see the chief executive in mid-December. He was civil, served me tea and asked me to take off my jacket.

He said that I was a valued writer, and said that he wanted me to stay. I expressed all of my concerns about the direction of the paper. I told him that I was not leaving to join another paper. I was resigning as a matter of conscience. Mr MacLennan agreed that advertising was allowed to affect editorial, but was unapologetic, saying that “it was not as bad as all that” and adding that there was a long history of this sort of thing at the Telegraph. I have since consulted Charles Moore, the last editor of the Telegraph before the Barclays bought the paper in 2004. Mr Moore confessed that the published accounts of Hollinger Inc, then the holding company for the Telegraph, did not receive the scrutiny they deserved. But no newspaper in history has ever given an unfavourable gloss on its owner’s accounts. Beyond that, Mr Moore told me, there had been no advertising influence on the paper’s news coverage. After my meeting with Mr MacLennan I received a letter from the Telegraph saying that the paper had accepted my letter of resignation, but welcomed my offer to work out my six-month notice period.

However in mid January I was asked to meet a Telegraph executive, this time over tea at the Goring Hotel. He told me that my weekly column would be discontinued and there had been a "parting of the ways". He stressed, however, that the Telegraph would continue to honour my contract until it ran out in May. For my part I said that I would leave quietly. I had no desire to damage the newspaper. For all its problems it continues to employ a large number of very fine writers. They have mortgages and families. They are doing a fine job in very trying circumstances. I prepared myself mentally for the alluring prospect of several months paid gardening leave. Story, what story? That was how matters stood when, on Monday of last week, BBC Panorama ran its story about HSBC and its Swiss banking arm, alleging a wide-scale tax evasion scheme, while the Guardian and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published their 'HSBC files'. All newspapers realised at once that this was a major event. The FT splashed on it for two days in a row, while the Times and the Mail gave it solid coverage spread over several pages.

You needed a microscope to find the Telegraph coverage: nothing on Monday, six slim paragraphs at the bottom left of page two on Tuesday, seven paragraphs deep in the business pages on Wednesday. The Telegraph’s reporting only looked up when the story turned into claims that there might be questions about the tax affairs of people connected to the Labour party. After a lot of agony I have come to the conclusion that I have a duty to make all this public. There are two powerful reasons. The first concerns the future of the Telegraph under the Barclay Brothers. It might sound a pompous thing to say, but I believe the newspaper is a significant part of Britain’s civic architecture. It is the most important public voice of civilised, sceptical conservatism. Telegraph readers are intelligent, sensible, well-informed people. They buy the newspaper because they feel that they can trust it. If advertising priorities are allowed to determine editorial judgments, how can readers continue to feel this trust? The Telegraph’s recent coverage of HSBC amounts to a form of fraud on its readers. It has been placing what it perceives to be the interests of a major international bank above its duty to bring the news to Telegraph readers. There is only one word to describe this situation: terrible.

Imagine if the BBC—so often the object of Telegraph attack—had conducted itself in this way. The Telegraph would have been contemptuous. It would have insisted that heads should roll, and rightly so. This brings me to a second and even more important point that bears not just on the fate of one newspaper but on public life as a whole. A free press is essential to a healthy democracy. There is a purpose to journalism, and it is not just to entertain. It is not to pander to political power, big corporations and rich men. Newspapers have what amounts in the end to a constitutional duty to tell their readers the truth. It is not only the Telegraph that is at fault here. The past few years have seen the rise of shadowy executives who determine what truths can and what truths can’t be conveyed across the mainstream media. The criminality of News International newspapers during the phone hacking years was a particularly grotesque example of this wholly malign phenomenon. All the newspaper groups, bar the magnificent exception of the Guardian, maintained a culture of omerta around phone-hacking, even if (like the Telegraph) they had not themselves been involved.

One of the consequences of this conspiracy of silence was the appointment of Andy Coulson, who has since been jailed and now faces further charges of perjury, as director of communications in 10 Downing Street. Urgent questions to answer Last week I made another discovery. Three years ago the Telegraph investigations team—the same lot who carried out the superb MPs’ expenses investigation—received a tip off about accounts held with HSBC in Jersey. Essentially this investigation was similar to the Panorama investigation into the Swiss banking arm of HSBC. After three months research the Telegraph resolved to publish. Six articles on this subject can now be found online, between 8 and 15 November 2012, although three are not available to view. Thereafter no fresh reports appeared. Reporters were ordered to destroy all emails, reports and documents related to the HSBC investigation. I have now learnt, in a remarkable departure from normal practice, that at this stage lawyers for the Barclay brothers became closely involved. When I asked the Telegraph why the Barclay brothers were involved, it declined to comment. This was the pivotal moment. From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph.

Its account, I have been told by an extremely well informed insider, was extremely valuable. HSBC, as one former Telegraph executive told me, is “the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend”. HSBC today refused to comment when I asked whether the bank's decision to stop advertising with the Telegraph was connected in any way with the paper's investigation into the Jersey accounts. Winning back the HSBC advertising account became an urgent priority. It was eventually restored after approximately 12 months. Executives say that Murdoch MacLennan was determined not to allow any criticism of the international bank. “He would express concern about headlines even on minor stories,” says one former Telegraph journalist. “Anything that mentioned money-laundering was just banned, even though the bank was on a final warning from the US authorities. This interference was happening on an industrial scale. “An editorial operation that is clearly influenced by advertising is classic appeasement. Once a very powerful body know they can exert influence they know they can come back and threaten you. It totally changes the relationship you have with them.

You know that even if you are robust you won’t be supported and will be undermined.” When I sent detailed questions to the Telegraph this afternoon about its connections with advertisers, the paper gave the following response. "Your questions are full of inaccuracies, and we do not therefore intend to respond to them. More generally, like any other business, we never comment on individual commercial relationships, but our policy is absolutely clear. We aim to provide all our commercial partners with a range of advertising solutions, but the distinction between advertising and our award-winning editorial operation has always been fundamental to our business. We utterly refute any allegation to the contrary." The evidence suggests otherwise, and the consequences of the Telegraph’s recent soft coverage of HSBC may have been profound. Would Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs have been much more energetic in its own recent investigations into wide-scale tax avoidance, had the Telegraph continued to hold HSBC to account after its 2012 investigation? There are great issues here. They go to the heart of our democracy, and can no longer be ignored. openDemocracy has launched an urgent appeal to help us keep publishing the stories others won't. Please give whatever you can here and share this widely.

About the author Peter Oborne is the former chief political commentator of the Telegraph and reports for Channel 4's Dispatches and Unreported World. He has written a number of books identifying the power structures that lurk behind political discourse, including The Triumph of the Political Class. He is a regular on BBC programmes Any Questions and Question Time and often presents Week in Westminster. He was voted Columnist of the Year at the Press Awards in 2013. Related Articles Why is the Daily Telegraph sitting on the EU referendum fence? | Media | The Guardian Why is the Daily Telegraph sitting on the EU referendum fence? Leading Eurosceptic newspaper appears to be pulling back from urging Brexit Boris day: the Telegraph gives its Brexiteer columnist front page support. Photograph: Public domain Contact author Thursday 3 March 2016 05.35 EST Last modified on Tuesday 13 September 2016 09.58 EDT Share on Messenger Close The Daily Telegraph has been acting rather strangely in the past couple of weeks, making it unclear exactly where it stands on the European Union referendum. For years, it has been the natural home of Eurosceptic thought and its readers could be forgiven for thinking it will opt for Brexit.

But there has been a disconnect of late between the choice of news content, which appears to have favoured the Brexit cause, and its wavering leading articles. Rather than full-throated support for Brexiteers, urging people to vote to leave the EU, it has chosen to talk about the need for a debate On 22 February, it acclaimed Boris Johnson’s decision to back Brexit with a poster-style front page and a big show for his Telegraph column, with a giant headline, “Vote Go.” Its editorial was more measured, arguing that the leave campaign now had a leader. The following day, it called for the debate “to be conducted amicably to avoid the Tory party ripping itself apart” and welcomed David Cameron’s call for “a gigantic democratic exercise in accountability.” On 24 February, a leading article headlined “Voters need the full facts for EU debate”, expanded on what has since become a Telegraph theme. In pleading for Cameron to allow the civil service to provide data to the anti-EU side, it reiterated the importance of the debate without saying where it stood. Similarly, today’s (Thursday’s) issue was odd.

A large front page headline, “ Wages to rise if we quit EU ”, based on a claim by Lord (Stuart) Rose, contrasted with a leading article, taking Rose to task for “ambiguity” and accused “both sides” in the debate of indulging “in a barrage of hints, threats, obfuscations and obstreperous confrontations that have proved occasionally explosive but rarely enlightening.” What the voters deserve, said the editorial, is “a great deal less heat, and a good deal more light” because “the public is hungry for serious debate.” Some people may think that the Telegraph itself has spent years publishing a barrage of hints, threats and obfuscations that was anything but enlightening. The Telegraph has been consistently hostile to the EU and all its works. Why then is it being so reticent now? Have the owners, the Barclay brothers, changed their minds? Has the chairman, Aidan Barclay , had second thoughts? Or is it a case of the editor, Chris Evans, striving to be impartial despite the paper’s historical stance? If the Telegraph’s letters page is any guide, then it is abundantly clear where the readers stand. My survey shows that the overwhelming majority are for Brexit.

Since 22 February (Boris day), the referendum has been the main topic on every day’s letters page. In that period, the paper has published 78 letters about the EU. Of those, 49 favoured Brexit with only seven arguing that Britain should remain in the EU. The other 22 were either neutral or made comments that did not reveal the writers’ viewpoints. I also noted that at least 18 letters made references that were specifically ill-disposed to Cameron. Almost every lead letter was from a Brexiteer, as the headlines illustrate: “Cameron’s approach to the EU puts the political elite before his party”... “Having gambled all to stay in the EU, Cameron could never bring us out”... “To help its nearest allies, Britain would be better placed outside the EU”... “Voting to remain in a European Union set on further expansion is the real ‘leap in the dark’”. Only one headline favoured the opposite point of view: “In an unstable world, Britain can’t afford to lose the military security provided by the EU”. That was over a letter written by a collective of assorted generals.

I am sure the choice of letters by the page’s meticulous editor, Christopher Howse, is a pretty accurate reflection of the overall daily postbag, so we can be sure that the bulk of Telegraph’s more activist readers want Britain to quit the EU. In such circumstances, dare the Telegraph do other than support Brexit, the logical outcome of its historic antagonism towards Brussels? If it should do otherwise, or even maintain its new fence-sitting line (you decide, rather than us), then it could well face a readership backlash.

Telegraph's Peter Oborne resigns, saying HSBC coverage a 'fraud on readers' | Media | The Guardian Daily Telegraph Telegraph's Peter Oborne resigns, saying HSBC coverage a 'fraud on readers' Ex-chief political commentator launches blistering attack on paper, saying it put bank’s interests before readers to save ad contract Daily Telegraph Telegraph's Peter Oborne resigns, saying HSBC coverage a 'fraud on readers' Ex-chief political commentator launches blistering attack on paper, saying it put bank’s interests before readers to save ad contract Wednesday 18 February 2015 02.54 EST First published on Tuesday 17 February 2015 13.58 EST Close This article is 1 year old The Daily Telegraph’s chief political commentator has resigned and launched a blistering attack on the paper’s management and owners over its lack of coverage of the HSBC tax story, which he described as a “fraud on its readers”.

Peter Oborne, associate editor of the Spectator and a familiar face on Channel 4 Dispatches documentaries, claimed the paper deliberately suppressed stories about the banking giant, including last week’s revelations that its Swiss subsidiary helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars in assets, in order to keep its valuable advertising account. He said it was a “most sinister development” at the broadsheet title, which he described as “the most important conservative-leaning newspaper in Britain”, but where he alleged the traditional distinction between the advertising and editorial departments had collapsed. Oborne claimed it was a pattern that could be seen elsewhere in the paper’s reporting, including its coverage of last year’s protests in Hong Kong. Oborne said the Telegraph’s coverage of HSBC , by putting the interests of a major international bank above its duty to report the news, was a “form of fraud on its readers”. “There are great issues here. They go to the heart of our democracy, and can no longer be ignored,” he said in an article on the open Democracy website . Oborne said the paper had discouraged stories critical of HSBC since the start of 2013, when the bank suspended its advertising with the paper following a Telegraph investigation into accounts held with HSBC in Jersey.

He said one former Telegraph executive told him HSBC was “the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend”. A later joint investigation into HSBC by the Guardian, the BBC, Le Monde and other media outlets revealed earlier this month that its Swiss banking arm had helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets, doling out bundles of untraceable cash and advising clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities. Before the latest HSBC revelations were published, and while discussions were continuing over the material, the bank put its advertising with the Guardian’s parent company, Guardian News and Media, “on pause”. HSBC - the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend Telegraph executive Oborne said he had told Murdoch MacLennan, the chief executive of the paper’s parent company, the Telegraph Media Group, that he was resigning in December last year. He said he had intended to leave quietly, but had a “duty to make all this public” following the Telegraph’s HSBC coverage, which “needed a microscope to find”. “The Telegraph’s recent coverage of HSBC amounts to a form of fraud on its readers,” he said.

“It has been placing what it perceives to be the interests of a major international bank above its duty to bring the news to Telegraph readers. There is only one word to describe this situation: terrible.” A Telegraph spokesperson said: “Like any other business, we never comment on individual commercial relationships, but our policy is absolutely clear. “We aim to provide all our commercial partners with a range of advertising solutions, but the distinction between advertising and our award-winning editorial operation has always been fundamental to our business. We utterly refute any allegation to the contrary. It is a matter of huge regret that Peter Oborne, for nearly five years a contributor to the Telegraph, should have launched such an astonishing and unfounded attack, full of inaccuracy and innuendo, on his own paper.” Oborne, who joined the Telegraph from the Daily Mail five years ago, accused it of a “collapse in standards” under its owners, the Barclay brothers, the reclusive multi-millionaire owners of the Ritz hotel, who bought it in 2004. Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, owners of the Telegraph.

Photograph: James Fraser/Rex Features Oborne said the paper’s reporting of HSBC – he said his own investigation into the bank had been rejected late last year – was “part of a wider problem”. “It has long been axiomatic in quality British journalism that the advertising department and editorial should be kept rigorously apart. There is a great deal of evidence that, at the Telegraph, this distinction has collapsed,” he said. He described a comment piece on the democracy protests in Hong Kong as “bizarre” and said it had been followed by a commentary in the paper by the Chinese ambassador whose “headline was beyond parody: ‘Let’s not allow Hong Kong to come between us’.” He also highlighted a feature in the paper about Cunard’s Queen Mary II liner – “Cunard is an important advertiser” – and what he regarded as its lack of coverage of the Tesco false accounting story last September. He said the paper’s coverage of HSBC meant he had a “duty to make all this public”. “Three years ago the Telegraph investigations team received a tipoff about accounts held with HSBC in Jersey. Essentially this investigation was similar to the Panorama investigation into the Swiss banking arm of HSBC,” he said.

“This was the pivotal moment. From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph,” he said. “Winning back the HSBC advertising account became an urgent priority. It was eventually restored after approximately 12 months.” Oborne said interference by management in stories involving the bank was happening “on an industrial scale”. He had urged MacLennan, in a chance meeting in the queue of mourners at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, not to take the paper’s readers for granted, and said he was told: “You don’t know what you are fucking talking about.” Oborne said events at the paper became “more and more dismaying”, including the firing last year of its editor, Tony Gallagher, with whom he had worked at the Mail. The introduction of a “click culture” in which the merit of stories was judged by online visits rather than importance was typified, he said, by a story on 22 September last year about a “woman with three breasts”. “I am not saying that online traffic is unimportant,” he said.

“But over the long term such episodes inflict incalculable damage on the reputation of the paper.” Oborne said he told MacLennan that he was resigning as a matter of conscience. “It is not only the Telegraph that is at fault here,” he said. “The past few years have seen the rise of shadowy executives who determine what truths can and what truths can’t be conveyed across the mainstream media. The criminality of News International newspapers during the phone-hacking years was a particularly grotesque example of this wholly malign phenomenon. “All the newspaper groups, bar the magnificent exception of the Guardian, maintained a culture of omerta around phone hacking. One of the consequences of this conspiracy of silence was the appointment of Andy Coulson … as director of communications at 10 Downing Street.” He said: “Telegraph readers are intelligent, sensible, well informed people. They buy the newspaper because they feel that they can trust it. If advertising priorities are allowed to determine editorial judgments, how can readers continue to feel this trust? “Imagine if the BBC – so often the subject of Telegraph attack – had conducted itself in this way. The Telegraph would have been contemptuous.

It would have insisted that heads should roll, and rightly so.” Oborne later stepped up his criticism, saying that he was speaking on behalf of the “vast majority” of Telegraph staff in saying that they had no confidence in MacLennan or the Barclay brothers. He told Channel 4 News: “I do think the Telegraph needs to explain to us, why its coverage of HSBC has been skewed, and not just to us. The really important people they need to explain this to is the readers of the Daily Telegraph . They are the people who trust the paper.” UK’s largest commercial radio group cited ‘editorial reasons’ for pausing coverage of how bank’s Swiss banking arm dealt with wealthy customers’ assets Published: 19 May 2015 Deal, thought to be worth £35m, will make Irish telecoms billionaire the fourth largest player in the UK radio market. By Mark Sweney Published: 6 Feb 2014 Real XS in Manchester and Scotland and Gold in east Midlands could go if Competition Commission blocks £70m purchase.

By Mark Sweney Published: 8 Mar 2013 Investigation into suspected ‘aggravated money laundering’ comes after Belgium and France begin scrutinising tax affairs of Europe’s biggest bank Published: 18 Feb 2015 Daily Telegraph - RationalWiki Daily Telegraph v - t - e “”The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country, the Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country, the Times is read by people who actually do run the country, the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country, the Financial Times is read by people who own the country, the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is ." —Jim Hacker, Yes, Prime Minister [1] The Daily Telegraph is a British daily broadsheet newspaper. The Telegraph (along with its sister edition the Sunday Telegraph) consistently supports the Conservative Party , takes a conservative (duh) position, and as a result has earned the nickname " Torygraph ." The paper, however, is far more Eurosceptical than the mainstream of the Conservative Party.

Like most newspapers, the Telegraph's circulation has fallen steadily over the past decade, [2] and it currently ranks fifth among British newspapers by circulation, first among broadsheets. The Telegraph is strongly anti- Murdoch , and has the wonderful distinction of having published an article which heavily links to RationalWiki . [3] Contents [ edit ] Ownership The paper is currently owned by identical twins brothers David and Frederick Barclay who have an estimated net worth of £1.8bn. Although British nationals born in London they have attracted some criticism for being tax exiles living on the Channel Island of Brecqhou or Monaco. The Barclays also own the weekly current affairs magazine The Spectator. [ edit ] Investigative journalism The Daily Telegraph is well known for leaks and whistle-blowing, as well as "sting" operations to reveal wrongdoing. It was the main outlet for the leaked details of British MPs' expenses, which caused great embarrassment for many parliamentarians and even led to a few of them going to prison . The Telegraph also caused huge controversy by sending journalists to flirt with members of Parliament at their constituency meetings, eventually ridiculing and embarrassing multiple Liberal Democrat MPs, most notably Vince Cable.

[ edit ] Columnawful While the main reporters of the Telegraph show a candid, but restrained, support for the Conservative Party, their columnists certainly rival their counterparts at the Daily Mail for wingnuttery , with a raving disdain for the European Union and skepticism about climate change (one of their bloggers is notable denier James Delingpole ). Christopher Booker , when he's not too busy ranting about the Human Rights Act , splits his time equally between denouncing climate change as a scam and denouncing the EU as, well, whatever accusations he fancies pulling out of his arse . [4] Meanwhile, the paper's editorials are simply propaganda . Half of the time, it's is aimed at the general public, trying to convince them that the Tories are the only safe option to govern Britain. The other half seems to be aimed at the party elite and hard-line supporters, being very much against "Tory modernisers " and encouraging the party to stick to Mrs. Thatcher 's legacy.

[5] [6] Their former chief political commentator ( Peter Oborne ) though often quite reasonable in his predictions of what the coalition government would face, was part of the " Christianity is oppressed !" brigade, often writing columns about " Islamisation " and the role of Christianity in the state. However, he has since resigned from his post, accusing the paper of a "form of fraud on its readers" [7] for its coverage of the bank HSBC in relation to a Swiss tax-dodging scandal that was widely covered by other news media. He alleged that editorial decisions about news content had been heavily influenced by the advertising arm of the newspaper because of commercial interests. [8] Meanwhile, online Nile "Vile" Gardiner has become somewhat of a Tea Party favourite, having written anti- Obama [9] and pro-batshit [10] articles consistently since mid-'09. The comments sections are, of course, gibberingly insane and should not be read under any circumstances. [ edit ] References ↑ "Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun ?" "Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits."

Question: Which brothers own the Daily Telegraph?
Answer: BARCLAY BROTHERS