Allister Heath is the editor of the UK’s German-owned Sunday Telegraph. He is in charge of one of the most politically powerful institutions in British democracy.
What The Telegraph demands, Britain’s right-wing parties usually obey — even when they have advocated the opposite for decades.
Under his editorship, the paper abandoned the Conservatives as too left wing and switched to pumping out pro-Reform propaganda, largely because Reform opposed climate action, backed the destruction of our human rights and supported tax cuts for the billionaire class. He hailed the Truss mini-budget as the best he had ever heard a British chancellor deliver.
His column responding to Europe going up in flames is an essay in climate insanity. It is a mixture of deeply destructive proposals and barefaced untruths.
- It says the climate war is over, and there is now nothing that can be done to stop climate destruction.
- It says Britain should accept, and indeed enjoy, our new “Mediterranean” climate.
- It claims climate action has damaged our economy. Our GDP has grown by over 90% since 1990 while we cut our carbon emissions by more than 50%.
- It demands we end all measures to cut carbon pollution.
- It demands we maximise exploitation of dirty UK fossil fuels.
- It declares that climate destruction will have losers and winners, and that the UK should back the winners. It does not name them. Air-conditioning manufacturers, perhaps. Fire engine builders.
There is no remorse in it for the firefighters who died, for the people burnt alive in cars fleeing the infernos, or for the wildlife dying in the flames.
This is the point about ownership
You do not have to take our word for any of this. Read the column.
The question our campaign asks is not whether one editor is wrong. Editors are entitled to be wrong. The question is why a single column, in a single paper, owned from abroad, can reset the policy of Britain’s right-wing parties within a fortnight.
That is not a free press. That is a private political instrument, and it is owned by people who do not live here.
Only an oligarchic media ownership model puts this much unaccountable power behind one desk.
The planetary fire alarms are screaming at us. We must end climate-trashing media billionairism before it ends us.
Our petition closes on Friday 18 September.
—
Please sign and share our petition to ban foreign media ownership: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/760061
And help us cover Campaign costs by donating to our Crowdfunder: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/crowdfunder-for-polling-the-publics-view-on-billi