The Critic Magazine

Sheikh up the Telegraph

NOT SINCE 1985 HAS A foreign bid for a British business so animated the Westminster classes. Then, the fate of a Somerset helicopter-maker, Westland, sparked a serious and soul-searching debate over whether our future lay with the transatlantic Special Relationship or, instead, across the Channel with Europe.

Fast-forward four decades, and the company in question is a heritage publisher — the Telegraph Media Group — which is facing a takeover by an Emiratis Sheikh. This affair has triggered a rather more low-rent row over Britain’s global status. The

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