YellowBird?

Six years ago, I told you to keep an eye on Sudan. The Wagner Group takes a close interest in the diamonds, gold, uranium, and thus government of that country, which in February 2023 agreed to host a Russian naval base on the Red Sea. Accordingly, an American-backed coup was staged so that the United Arab Emirates could have those resources instead, just as the Emiratis are deemed fit to own P&O, the Port of Southampton, and much of Thames Water.

Yet the Statute Law had to be changed to stop them from buying two small circulation newspapers and a tiny circulation magazine because the writers on those moved in the same social circles as both front benches, although one of those writers has since moved to Dubai, from which she now files her copy. After all, a few months after having been placed under that statutory ban, that country, in which trade unions and political parties were illegal, was declared one of the souls of moderation in the Middle East. Throughout, Britain has armed it while it has armed the Rapid Support Forces, as is now before the International Court of Justice. Via the British-armed RSF, the United Arab Emirs are about to take colonial possession of much of Sudan, in a grand old tradition of Gulf potentates in East Africa. Denial is a river in Sudan. But they must never, ever, ever own the Daily Telegraph?

Telegraph columnists appear to have the answer to every problem. It is a wonder that no Telegraph columnist has ever become Prime Minister. Had that happened, then it could only have ended well, if it would already have ended at all. Having been hooked by the horses, by the hats, and by the horses in hats, then Telegraph readers may expect to continue to be fed comment that seasoned journalists from other English-speaking countries could not tell from The Guardian in blind tests. In my direct experience, that is quite the game in certain parlours. If Telegraph, Guardian and Times readers alike wanted to know what their sages really thought, then they would read the Financial Times and The Economist, in which the Establishment talked to itself on the assumption that no one else was listening.

Could anything have been funnier than that the Telegraph had begged the State for protection from the “free” market? Yes, there was one thing even more amusing than that. A Conservative Government had granted it. By Statute. Someone should have tabled an amendment exempting Israel from that ban, just to force a vote and see what would have happened. And now, the Labour Party that voted for that Bill in Opposition is in government and allowing the offending acquisition to proceed after all. The press must be so free that you needed the Government’s permission to part-own it. If a publication were that important, then it could not possibly be allowed to go bust. We would all have to pick up the tab. You read it here first, as you very often do.

If you thought that there was now a Labour Government, or that a Labour Government was as you imagined, then ask yourself why it would care in the least who owned the Telegraph, which is still always described as “influential”. Influential over whom? But the Emiratis are now considered among the “moderates” in the Middle East. They are undeniably old friends of Britain, whatever that may say.

So the tack has been changed to a Yellow Peril. RedBird Capital Partners is now suddenly somehow Chinese. You know, the China that was actively encouraged to own any British infrastructure that it happened to fancy, and which the Crown Prosecution Service recently conceded in open court was not an enemy within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act, or else both the Government and great tracts of British business would have been guilty of the straightforwardly treasonable act of trading with the enemy. The Times and the Sunday Times have named Durham their University of the Year 2026. When did you last visit Durham? You really should.