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Section Four Index:
The Guardian's grip on the British media

During 1998 and 1999 The Daily Telegraph's top investigative journalist, former Washington correspondent Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, spent days examining the evidence that Malcolm Keith-Hill and Jonathan Boyd Hunt had unearthed. After studying a file of documents prepared by Hunt, Evans-Pritchard agreed that The Guardian had framed Neil Hamilton on forged evidence and lies. Consequently, he wrote a number of articles airing the two freelances' investigation and findings, but his editor, Charles Moore, spiked them.  It seems certain that Moore's decision had been brought about by pressure exerted by The Telegraph's proprietor, Conrad Black, and Black's deputy, Daniel Colson.

The Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. He endorsed Hunt & Keith-Hill's conclusion that Guardian journalists had lied, forged documents, and withheld documents illegally from Hamilton's solicitors.  His articles airing the two freelances' work were spiked.

It is a little known fact that the profitability of the Conservative Telegraph depends entirely on its tie-ups with the left-wing Guardian. In Manchester, The Telegraph and The Guardian each own 50% of a printworks, Trafford Park Printers, which was founded in 1986 by the Telegraph's proprietor, the late Lord Hartwell, and The Guardian's journalist-run owners, The Scott Trust.  In other words, the two papers are business partners, and their respective directors rub shoulders on Trafford Park Printer's board, such as The Telegraph's Bill Deeds and The Guardian's Ian Ashcroft.

Trafford Park Printers, Manchester.  The company prints the northern editions of The Guardian; The Observer; The Daily Telegraph & Sunday Telegraph; plus the Guardian-owned Manchester Evening News.

Meanwhile, The Guardian's southern titles have been printed by the Telegraph-run West Ferry Printers, ever since an IRA bomb damaged The Guardian's London printworks on 9 February 1996. Within minutes of hearing about the explosion Conrad Black was on the phone to The Guardian's editor, Alan Rusbridger, offering to produce his newspaper. Rusbridger took up the offer, and The Telegraph has printed The Guardian in London ever since. The contract, which runs until 2009, is one of the industry's biggest and The Telegraph's most lucrative, contributing an estimated £5 million annually to its profits.

Europe's largest printworks, the Telegraph-run West Ferry Printers, Docklands, London.  It is contracted to print The Guardian's southern titles until 2009. The large profits generated maintain The Telegraph's viability.

That figure would double should The Telegraph ever acquire the Daily Express's 50% interest in West Ferry as had been planned.
    West Ferry Printers also prints The Financial Times. When this deal was forged in April 1995 the Telegraph and the FT reported it fully, with the Telegraph article including comments from Conrad Black and another Telegraph executive, Stephen Grabiner; plus the FT's John Makinson.
    A year later on 14 May 1996, the Telegraph and The Guardian signed their massive, 13-year contract for West Ferry to print The Guardian's southern titles.  However, despite the sheer vastness of this deal and its immense positive impact on the Telegraph Group's profitability, the only announcement was a couple of lines in the Telegraph's City Diary.

Some of the newspapers printed by West Ferry Printers

Tellingly, there was no inkling in this mere snippet that West Ferry was 50% owned and controlled by the Telegraph, nor was there any quotation from Conrad Black despite the fact that it was his phone call to Alan Rusbridger that secured the contract in the first place.  Two months later on 18 July the Telegraph sealed the deal by selling The Guardian 3 million West Ferry shares.  Neither newspaper reported the transaction to their readerships.

Two months later on 30 September 1996, Neil Hamilton was forced to settle his libel action with The Guardian, when the lawyers acting for him and the lobbyist Ian Greer withdrew from acting for either on a legal technicality.  The next day The Guardian went into overdrive with a series of highly misleading articles entitled 'Corruption in the Commons', its theme being that the lobbyist had corrupted Neil Hamilton and other Tory MPs.  The first of these, written by hard-left political warrior David Leigh [see "Section Three], is pictured on the right.

Outright propaganda, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph

Conrad Black

Though so perversely misleading as to rightfully earn the description propaganda, none of The Guardian's reports were criticised by the Tory Telegraph, which was obviously making too much money printing them.
    In July 2000 Jonathan Boyd Hunt wrote to each of the Telegraph's directors and suggested that they should divest themselves of their alliances with The Guardian, which Hunt described as a 'subversive organisation'.  In his reply Conrad Black defended the two newspapers' entwined interests on the grounds that the Telegraph often 'criticises' The Guardian.  Black offered no explanation as to why Evans-Pritchard's articles had been censored.

The partnership that prevented publication of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's articles airing The Guardian's conspiracy.

The Guardian's grip on the Press Association

The Guardian's grip on Manchester's local press