Brecqou boys rule, OK

Every Monday, the Barclay Brothers owned Daily Telegraph gives over a column entirely devoted to how wonderful Boris Johnson is, written by Boris Johnson. When the London Mayor says or does anything, the Telegraph can be relied upon to big up the ‘story’. When Johnson is caught out in some way, the Telegraph rarely if ever prints the story – and certainly never leads with it. There is an obvious but as yet ill-defined link between the B’s and Bojo.

The Barclay Brothers pay no British tax, and do not have a vote on British affairs. What the Barclays have is an influential newspaper and tons of munneeee. Although I routinely refer to them as the Sarkists, in fact five years ago this week the Sark electorate told the Brothers to stick their £5m per annum investment on Sark, and the twins promptly closed down their businesses there, laying off 140 workers, in 2008. It was their ball, see: and the islanders wouldn’t play ball, so the Magnificent Two have been sulking ever since on the nearby island of Brecqhou.

If only all they did was sulk. Be under no illusion about the power these two blokes wield. The only time I’ve ever seen fear on a Cabinet Minister’s face was when I told him about one of their little projects. The busy B’s loathe Camerlot (with the exception of George Osborne) but they loathe the Labour Party even more. So the Telegraph has been turned into a Britain is Booming newspaper, a Boris is Brilliant newspaper, a Barclay-style capitalism is Beautiful newspaper, and a George is a Genius newspaper. Given the Telegraph is still regarded by people in Surrey as The Bible, this gives the twins an enormous amount of unaccountable power to persuade.

Today’s Telegraph website is replete with examples of their boneheaded propaganda.

The last one of these is especially amusing, as it is a 2-for-1 banded pack offer, aka the same bollocks twice. None of these ‘stories’ bear interrogation, and all of them have been deconstructed by The Slog in the last seven days. The Daily Mail is now a better newspaper than the Daily Telegraph. Spookily, the Mail’s financial and business news revival happened alongside the Telegraph’s descent into tabloid journalism with the departure of one Daily Mail editor and the arrival of one new Daily Telegraph editor. They are the same man: Tony Gallagher. A lot of Mail boat people followed him soon after the news began to bubble up about phone hacking by the Street of Shame. The methods they use are not always pleasant.

Nor indeed are those of the Boys from Brecqhou. This is a reliable information site under the wordpress banner. One extract from The Times is especially fruity: ‘Sir Frederick said: “Sir David and I left the UK over 23 years ago for health reasons and not for tax reasons in any shape or form.” That’s why they live on a cold, windy Channel Island”. Yes indeed – a rationale every bit as risible as their newspaper’s concept of reality.

They own a major medium, they avoid paying all taxes on that ‘information medium’, they sued the HMRC for a billion pounds after one corporate purchase, and their newspaper staff mislead people on a daily basis. But they have great power over the Conservative Party, for they reassure many minds and “persuade” others. Paddy McKillen continues to believe that, but then again he is Irish, and thus prone to wild allegations about undue influence upon company directors. Not my field I’m afraid, so I couldn’t possibly comment.

In fact I’ve nothing against these two blokes personally: I don’t know them and I’ve never met them. I just don’t think any UK media title (including The Times) should be in the hands of non-dom oligarchs with, the evidence might suggest, ideas far bigger than their brains.

Related from the Slog archives: How it earned the name Maily Telegraph