The Daily Telegraph has long been known as the Conservatives’ de facto house journal. But, with its central role in recent manoeuvrings to undermine Rishi Sunak, it seems the paper is taking this a step further, and hopes to reshape the party in its ideological image.
In the past 10 days, the Telegraph – itself experiencing flux with a takeover looming – has published not just a withering comment piece from a Tory MP calling for Sunak to go, but detailed polling seeking to explain why it would be better for the party if he did.
Fronted by Lord David Frost but commissioned by a previously unknown group calling itself the Conservative Britain Alliance, the first salvo, published in the Telegraph 10 days ago, predicted an election wipeout for the Tories.
On Tuesday came more results from the same YouGov mega-poll, which used an arguably ambiguous, even leading question, to further make the case for yet another new guard at the top of the party.
When voters were asked whom they preferred between Sunak and Keir Starmer, the Labour leader came out on top in the majority of constituencies, but this was reversed when Starmer was put up against a “new, tax-cutting Tory leader with a tougher approach to legal and illegal migration”, who was not named.
If the message was not completely clear in readers’ minds, the same article carried quotes from a comment piece in the paper written by Simon Clarke, a Liz Truss-era cabinet minister who is a Sunak backer turned ardent foe.
“The unvarnished truth is that Rishi Sunak is leading the Conservatives into an election where we will be massacred,” Clarke argued.
It is hard to know precisely what the paper is up to without knowing the identity of the people behind the Conservative Britain Alliance. On Wednesday night, it was reported that a former special adviser to Sunak, Will Dry, had helped draw up the YouGov poll questions after becoming “dispirited” with Sunak’s premiership. However, the names of others involved, unusually for modern UK politics, have stayed a secret for more than a week.
But the general intent seems clear. Even setting aside the broader rule of thumb that newspapers rarely back campaigns they don’t believe in, the intended message from the YouGov polling – that voters would respond well to a low-tax Tory MP who took an even more robust line on immigration – fits precisely with the Telegraph’s view, as articulated in recent leader columns.
The guessing game over the poll’s funders, which has taken in just about every wealthy Tory player and donor on the right of the party, has muddled this somewhat, especially with the added factor of the continuing battle for the Telegraph’s future, something insiders argue is unconnected to the Sunak-bashing.
Another recent part of the paper’s coverage has been a stream of articles and comment pieces pushing back against the Abu Dhabi-backed bid that is the frontrunner to take over the group from its previous owners, the Barclay family.
The plan, which faces potential rival bids including from the Daily Mail group, and Paul Marshall, the co-owner of GB News, is being referred to Ofcom, the media regulator, as well as to the Competition and Markets Authority.
While the backer or backers of the anti-Sunak polling obviously have their own agenda, some argue that the Telegraph’s leading role is partly down to it being the obvious home for such coverage, but is also an effort by the paper to stay relevant.
The Telegraph faced playing “a diminishing role” in the Tory universe, in part due to the rise of social media and outlets such as GB News, said Robert Hayward, a Conservative peer who is also a noted political analyst and psephologist.
“The written word is less important than it was previously, in general terms, and I think the Telegraph has diminished its influence more than most might have done,” he said. “Clearly, people like the Mail in particular still retain a very powerful sway message. But I think the Telegraph less so.”
While the paper is still closely read by Conservative members and would thus be “seriously influential” in any leadership contest, Lord Hayward said, with the focus on such internal wrangles, “the risk is that they are talking to a smaller group”.
He added: “It could be that they’re responding to their readership, or they believe that’s what their readership wants to hear, I’m not sure. But I just have a sense that the Telegraph overall is less persuasive, less influential than it used to be.”
