News website UnHerd and “Westminster’s all-day British brasserie”, the Old Queen Street Cafe sit side-by-side in a city street, close by London’s parliamentary corridors of power.

Ventures of Paul Marshall, knight, hedge fund tycoon, philanthropist and media investor, they are shortly to be joined by what is claimed to be the world’s oldest current affairs magazine, The Spectator, of which Sir Paul has gained control for a trifling GBP£100 million (A$196 million) and perhaps part of a portfolio he hopes may include the Daily and Sunday Telegraph.

A backer of opinion-orientated free-to-air TV and radio news channel GB News, there’s no doubt of his desire to own a significant swathe of the UK’s conservative and right wing media outlets.

UnHerd (‘for people who dare to think for themselves’) and the Old Queen Street Cafe – which opened at the end of 2022 – are an interesting start. The news website carries pictures of guests to a series of launch events, many of them politicians, and the café’s programme includes talks, screenings, lectures and events, to which subscribers can expect to be invited.

The Spectator acquisition comes with international art magazine Apollo, both of which can look forward to investment, expertise and facilities to grow, according to law firm White & Case, which advised Sir Paul and OQS Media. OQS also owns publishing technology startup CoEditor and the Unherd Club, and plans to also relocate the Spectator in Old Queen Street.

“A particular focus will be given to expanding the magazine’s reach in the Anglosphere and in North America, as well as using OQS Media’s digital expertise to enhance the experience of Spectator readers by innovating across technology, video and audio,” a statement says.

Although both publications had been owned by the Barclay Brothers, the deal follows last year’s receivership process, and the government’s decision that foreign-backed RedBird IMI was not a suitable owner for a UK media entity. The same obstacles have put Daily Telegraph owner Telegraph Media Group on the market and Marshall is lining up to be its owner.

With 2019 circulations of 317,817 and 248,288 respectively – more recent figures have not been published – the Daily and Sunday Telegraph are a different proposition. If 2024 figures have not fallen (unlikely) that would put them second only to the Daily Mail, its Sunday stablemate, and commuter freesheet Metro.

Whether the pro-Tory broadsheet will share the same aims as Unherd – giving “a platform to the overlooked, the downtrodden and the traduced” – under new management, remains to be seen.

What is certain is that unlike media barons of the past, Marshall will not expect to come away from his investments with a barrel of cash; with care, however, he may have the potential to make the world a better place.

There’s an interesting quote in one of UnHerd’s articles – from Cambridge political economy professor Helen Thomson – that “when it becomes clear that most of Britain’s problems these past 14 years were being presided over by the Conservatives, rather than caused by them, the implosion will quite probably overwhelm British democracy as we know it”.

Watch this space.

Breaking: As we went to press this week, Press Gazette’s Dominic Ponsford has reported that James Harding’s “slow news outfit” Tortoise is in talks to buy the loss-making Observer from Guardian Media Group.

Peter Coleman

Pictured: Unherd’s offices and the QCS Café and (above, at one of the QCS openings) Sir Paul and Lady Marshall with (centre) satirist and author Konstantin Kisin (photo UnHerd)