Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said in a letter to the News Media Association that his government “recognises the basic principle” that publishers should seek compensation for the use of their content by artificial intelligence companies.

Marking the start of the NMA‘s annual “Journalism Matters” week, the Labour leader said both AI and the media were “central” to the government’s growth goals and he hoped to “rebalance” the relationship between platforms and publishers using the Digital Markets and Consumers Act.

He said: “Both artificial intelligence and the creative industries – which includes news and media – are central to this government’s driving mission on economic growth.

“To strike balance in our industrial policy, we are working closely with both sectors. We recognise the basic principle that publishers should have control over and seek payment for their work, including when thinking about the role of AI.

“Not only is it essential for a vibrant media landscape, in which the sector’s provision of trustworthy information is more vital than ever.”

Starmer’s comments come two weeks after he told an investment summit the UK “needs to run towards” AI, which he described as “a game changer that has massive potential on productivity, and on driving our economy”.

And they come the day after The Observer reported that publishers including the BBC and Mumsnet have voiced worry over a Labour plan to allow AI companies to scrape pages on the internet for content by default, which would mean websites have to actively opt out to prevent their property being digested into AI large language models. (The head of the NMA told The Observer the plans would be “a hammer blow to the creative industries”.)

The prime minister also wrote that journalists should not “ever suffer intimidation”, including from “powerful people using SLAPPs [vexatious lawsuits] to intimidate journalists away from their pursuit of the public interest.

“Such behaviour is intolerable and we will tackle the use of SLAPPs to protect investigative journalism, alongside access to justice. “

After initially promising action on SLAPPs (by Russian oligarchs specifically) during the general election, Labour has since delayed making specific proposals on the issue. A private members’ bill about SLAPPs that was making its way through Parliament was dropped when the election was called, although a new private members’ bill put forward by Conservative Gregory Stafford is on its second reading at time of writing.

Also marking the commencement of Journalism Matters week, NMA chief executive Owen Meredith wrote: “We have the opportunity to harness the potential of AI – but we must do so in a way that supports the sustainability of journalism by upholding our gold standard intellectual property and copyright laws, which are a powerful driver of revenue and growth across many industries.

“The news media industry is not against generative AI, but it cannot be allowed to dismantle existing industries that are so important culturally and financially to the UK.”

Meredith called for the government to “divert a greater proportion of its advertising spend from Big Tech to local media” and to have the forthcoming Digital Market Unit prioritise designating “Google’s ad tech services, Meta’s Facebook and both Google and Apple’s mobile ecosystems” as having strategic market status.

[Read more: Digital Markets Bill passed paving way for publisher ‘level playing field’ with big tech]

Keir Starmer’s letter to the News Media Association in full:

“Journalism is the lifeblood of democracy. Journalists are guardians of democratic values. These simple facts are so woven into the fabric of our society, that we often take them for granted. This year I fought tooth and nail for the honour of serving our country as Prime Minister. And at every step of the way, I was robustly held to account by determined, incisive and irrepressible members of the fourth estate. Neither myself or the now Leader of the Opposition complained about this. Neither of us turned our partisan supporters against the media. We went about our business, just as all our predecessors have, accepting that this is democracy in action. It was ordinary and unremarkable.

“And yet this is not a given. All around the world journalist put themselves at risk in defence of those values. Journalists such as the Ukrainian Victoria Roshchyna, who brought us the horrific story of Mariupol – now dead in Russian custody. Or the hundreds of journalists killed reporting the unimaginable suffering in Gaza. Or the BBC’s Gary O’Donoghue taking cover during the attempted assassination of President Trump, still broadcasting while lying face down on the ground behind his car. An extraordinary image that brought home both the risks and the purpose of journalism. That, through the bravery of journalists, the world sees what it needs to see.

“There are over 900 local and national news titles in the UK. For all the prophecies of doom about the future of news, that represents an extraordinary strength. The British news industry reaches over eighty percent of the population.

“However, this vitality should not blind us to the challenges. And, while thankfully there is no direct threat to press freedoms in our country, we must remain vigilant that the growing power of digital technology does not begin to chip away at them. Particularly as artificial intelligence begins to transform our economy and way of life.

“Both artificial intelligence and the creative industries – which includes news and media – are central to this government’s driving mission on economic growth. To strike balance in our industrial policy, we are working closely with both sectors. We recognise the basic principle that publishers should have control over and seek payment for their work, including when thinking about the role of AI. Not only is it essential for a vibrant media landscape, in which the sector’s provision of trustworthy information is more vital than ever. It is also relevant to our ongoing work to roll out the Digital Markets and Consumers Act as swiftly as possible. This landmark legislation will help rebalance the relationship between platforms and those, such as publishers, who rely on them.

“We also stand with journalists who endure threats just for doing their job. Just because journalists are brave, does not mean they should ever suffer intimidation. This goes for social media. The Online Safety Act will introduce new protections from abuse, as well respecting recognised news publisher content. It goes for journalists around the world, where we will continue to use British soft power and diplomacy to argue for journalistic freedoms. But it also goes for powerful people using SLAPPs to intimidate journalists away from their pursuit of the public interest. Such behaviour is intolerable and we will tackle the use of SLAPPs to protect investigative journalism, alongside access to justice.

“Because this is a government that will always champion press freedoms. We believe in being held to account. I am determined to show that traditional democratic British values are the only way to deliver the change that working people need – that is my political project in a nutshell. And there can be nothing more traditional, democratic or British than a robust free press, fearlessly holding the powerful to account.”

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The chief executive of Reach, the UK’s biggest commercial news publisher, has pledged to hire more journalists if the Government spends more on advertising within the industry.

In 2022 the previous Government spent less than 3% of its advertising budget with local news media versus 17% with Google and Facebook, according to industry body the News Media Association.

Speaking at Press Gazette’s Media 100 breakfast event in London on Thursday, Jim Mullen shared an offer he has made with the new Labour Government.

“What we’ve said to the government is, we don’t want a handout, right? Publishers shouldn’t look for handouts – if you do, you’re compromised anyway. So we will come to you and say, actually, give us a fair share of the ad revenue you give to the platforms… and put it into our local and regional news sites. And if we get that to us, I’ll put more journalists on the ground. So that’s the deal that is there.

“The amount of money that goes into the likes of Meta and the platforms – give it to us to put into the [Liverpool] Echo, give it to Newsquest to get into their regionals, put it in National World, and I can’t speak for them, but if that went to us, then there would be more journalists on the ground the day that that decision is made. I mean, what a deal.”

Mullen later added: “We don’t want to see advertising going into platforms, because they’re not making a commitment to invest in journalism. We will put journalists in the newsrooms if we get the revenue…”

Mullen said Keir Starmer’s Government is “very smart with this idea that news should be free at the point of access”.

‘Paywalls don’t work for us’

He spoke passionately about the idea that publishers like Reach should not paywall their content. Two days earlier CNN, the biggest news website in the US, announced plans to implement a metered paywall.

One of the UK’s biggest news websites, Mail Online, has also implemented a part paywall in the past year with about ten to 15 stories per day allocated to paying subscribers only.

Asked if Reach had looked at doing anything similar, Mullen said: “We have a responsibility to shareholders to look at all the ways we can increase value for the company, so we’ve run multiple tests on paywalls on some of our titles, and it just doesn’t work for us.”

However, he said there is a “fundamental reason” he is against paywalls: “I think you have to be really careful what you want your country to be… What environment, society do you want to live in where in order to get news, to inform your opinions whether it’s about right-wing protesters coming in from outside your community, whether it’s about social housing that’s not working, whether it’s about NHS Trusts where you can’t get your breast scan, you have to pay for that to make a decision.

“It’s always put to me pretty quickly that other publishers and other nations are doing it and that’s a good thing. Is it? Is that a good thing?”

Mullen added that he did not want to live in Scandanavia or Germany “where you need to pay for your news. This is Britain. We have a different approach to it… if you do pay for your news and you can’t afford to get it and you don’t know what decisions are getting made in your local NHS Trusts, and you don’t know what decisions are being made in the local councils, is it any surprise that people feel that they’re not involved?” he asked, issuing a warning about the rise of extremist views.

Addressing the room of senior publishing leaders, Mullen continued: “I’m not judging anyone else’s business models, there are a few publishers in here that I subscribe to, but I’m lucky, I can afford to do it, and some of the stuff I subscribe to is brilliant, and I’m willing to pay £9.99 for it.

“But don’t assume it’s the norm, because if we don’t have free local news in these communities, then we’re diluting democracy.”

‘Why is the BBC doing brownie recipes?’

Unlike many countries, the UK does have a free-to-air (though licence-fee funded) news provider in the form of the BBC.

Mullen repeated calls made by numerous commercial news publishers that the BBC is “overreaching” to the detriment of commercial news publishers.

“The BBC’s quite clear: it should be producing very specialist news and content that is not covered by commercial news publishers, because, luckily, we live in at least a partial free market… I think the country would be a lesser place without the BBC, but I think it’s overreached.”

He cited the example of Reach, Newsquest and BBC sites all publishing brownie recipes. At Reach, Mullen said, selling advertising on recipes funds the journalism done by the likes of the Liverpool Echo. “Why is the BBC doing brownie recipes?”

Users should see ‘gradual reduction’ in number of ads on Reach sites in next few years

Asked about the high advertising load on Reach websites, Mullen blamed the longstanding pension fund deficit and legal costs for phone-hacking claims for the need to show so many ads.

A pension fund agreement for Mirror Group Newspapers agreed a year ago means the deficit will be removed via payments of £46m each year until January 2028, while the dismissal of hacking claims on time limitation grounds last year means cases that began after October 2020 are now likely to be dismissed unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Mullen said these issues meant “we need to put a certain amount of ads on our pages.

“All that money is paid off in 2028 so we should see a gradual reduction. We’ve already launched a new platform which has managed the latency of it, which is on some of the regional titles, the Liverpool Echo, you will notice a difference, but over the last couple of years, it was pretty packed, and that is gradually getting better now as our obligations go down and as the investment in new technologies shows…”

Reach now has 12 million registered customers (people who have shared some personal data such as their email address) in total but nine million who have given permission to be served content every day, for example through a newsletter.

Mullen said Reach is “building relationships on a single line of content that people are interested in” giving the example of topics like Arsenal, cooking or gardening in the autumn, adding that “all we need” is “five, ten, 12 minutes a day” of people’s time in order to sell to advertisers at a higher yield.

He said in the Reach annual report published earlier this year that “the return on data-driven advertising is currently ten times more valuable than volume-related programmatic advertising returns”.

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Mirror political editor John Stevens is leaving the newspaper brand to work for the new Labour government.

Stevens has been in the Mirror role for two years, having previously been deputy political editor at the Daily Mail for five years.

He will become a special adviser to Pat McFadden MP, who is in Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and who has been described as “the most influential MP you’ve never heard of”.

Mirror editor-in-chief Caroline Waterston said in a note to staff, seen by Press Gazette, on Friday: “John has been a brilliant addition to the political team since he joined in September 2022.

“During his time here, he has worked on some great exclusives, including his bombshell Partygate tape which showed footage for the first time inside one of the lockdown-busting gatherings in Westminster. This footage was featured at the top of broadcast bulletins for days and quickly became the most watched video in the history of the Mirror website.”

Stevens was shortlisted in the Politics Journalism category at the British Journalism Awards last year for the Partygate tape as well as exclusives that Suella Braverman’s team wrongly denied she had received a speeding ticket and that Rishi Sunak gave a £10 bottle of wine to a local school despite donating millions to his wife’s US college.

Stevens was also involved in the Mirror’s Save Our Ticket Offices campaign which was shortlisted for Campaign of the Year at the same event, Waterston said.

She also shared a quote from Stevens, who said: “I have loved working at the Mirror with such a brilliant team of colleagues. There are so many talented people I am thankful to for making my time here so enjoyable.”

The New Statesman reported last year of Stevens’s new boss that Starmer “is said to regularly seek McFadden’s counsel and spend more time with him than almost any other frontbencher”. McFadden is a veteran of government, having worked with both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Numerous political editors have moved into senior jobs in government over the years.

For Labour, Alastair Campbell was political editor of the Mirror and then the now-defunct Today newspaper before becoming Blair’s press secretary in 1994.

For the Conservatives, recent converts have included ex-Talkradio political editor Ross Kempsell who joined Boris Johnson’s team as a special adviser in 2019 and long-time Spectator political editor James Forsyth who became Rishi Sunak’s political secretary.

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The Labour Party set out its legislative agenda in the King’s Speech this week. Through this it has softened its commitments to introduce legislation to regulate AI. This does not augur well for a rapid resolution to the AI/IP problem.

This King’s Speech was never expected to hold much for the news sector. The long-running legislative changes that mattered most were passed through wash-up at the end of the last parliament.

In the last days of the Conservative administration we finally saw the passage of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. This will give force to a new regulatory regime – five years in the making – aimed at addressing competition issues in digital markets. And of course the repeal of Section 40, which could have required publishers to pay legal fees to complainants – regardless of the outcome of their complaint – unless they were signed up to a state-backed regulator.

But increasingly these feel like yesterday’s battles. With Google referrals dropping and search interdependence faltering, the frontline for publishers in their online operations is becoming AI.

Large language model chatbots have been trained on publisher archives, without authorisation or payment. In some instances they are being used by consumers instead of original content. If you’re looking for a travel itinerary or recipe inspiration, you’re going to get what you need faster by using AI instead of scouring multiple sites via search.

[Read more: Google AI Overviews breaks search giant’s grand bargain with publishers]

In the days prior to the King’s Speech it was trailed that we should be expecting a firm commitment to introduce an Artificial Intelligence Bill in the first year of the Starmer regime.

Ultimately this was weakened, with instead the King telling us that his government would “seek to establish the appropriate legislation” to regulate “the most powerful artificial intelligence models”.

Whilst perhaps tonally a slight advance of the previous administration’s, this suggests both a delay and a focus on the end-of-the-world harms (which has been a useful and effective means by which AI firms have distracting lawmakers), rather than the more prosaic issues surrounding copyright infringement.

Conservative government ‘made a mess’ of AI policy – what’s next?

The outgoing Conservative government made a mess of policy in this space. Back in summer 2022, out of nowhere, it announced the intention to create an extreme form of “text and data mining” copyright exception. This would have given free rein to anyone wanting to ingest copyright materials to, for example, train a large language model. This exception would have applied even if that model is being used commercially.

Outcry from the creative sectors followed. This was amplified when, a few months later, OpenAI released ChatGPT 3 which, it was clear, had been trained on a corpus of data including vast amounts of copyright materials.

Ultimately the government scrapped the exception in early 2023 and instead tasked the Intellectual Property Office with establishing a working group to try and resolve the issue through the creation of a voluntary “code of practice”. After months of predictably-fruitless work, this was also abandoned, with participants failing to agree on the most basic points (i.e. is a licence required for AI model training).

From that point until the government limped out of office, its policy was seemingly “masterly inactivity”. Court cases had started to be filed on both sides of the Atlantic and rather than weigh in to support rights-holders, instead it sat back and let the judicial system do its thing.

[Who’s suing AI and who’s signing: Publisher deals vs lawsuits with generative AI companies]

Rumours abound that ministers and officials were subject to intense lobbying from tech firms. Any use of the word “licensing” was subject to fierce opposition. Decisions about where to deploy AI investment were a powerful bargaining chip for those working under a pro-tech Prime Minister Sunak (note Labour’s manifesto also describes an industrial strategy which “supports the development of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector”).

But the court cases will take many years to play out as technical arguments surrounding the precise processes involved in training a LLM are scrutinised. The consensus in the UK is that the existing legal framework will, ultimately, offer the protections that rights-holders need. However much harm may be done in the interim.

Whilst an AI Bill may not have been the right vehicle to provide clarity on the application of IP law to AI, it would be a good means of ensuring transparency around training data and signalling the Government’s position on this issue.

The EU’s AI Act includes such a provision but the wording leaves substantial wriggle room for big tech (requiring only “sufficiently detailed summaries” of training data to be published). The UK could have set the global standard in this narrow space.

Clearly it is early days for the Labour administration. There are reasons to believe that its instincts are likely to be more supportive of rights-holders and the UK’s creative sector than the previous government. But giving rights-holders the control over the use of their IP, and confidence in the application of IP law, is urgently needed.

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Page views to news and politics content across the UK’s leading publishers are believed to have reached a record high in the week of the general election vote.

News and politics page views recorded for publishers that are members of online advertising network Ozone totalled 193.8 million between 1-7 July, up 15% week-on-week.

Separated out, politics page views also reached what is believed to be a record of 93 million, up 56% week-on-week, in the week of polling day (Thursday 4 July).

News publishers represented by Ozone, which was created in 2018 as a collaboration between leading UK publishers, include: Reach, News UK, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Mail Metro Media, The Independent, Huffpost, Evening Standard, City AM, Pink News and DC Thomson.

Ozone claims to reach 38 million unique users per month with news and politics coverage.

It said its “total daily audience on the result day was 20% higher than the average of the previous seven days, highlighting the impact on total audience reach during these tentpole moments in UK history”.

Charted: Politics page views peak for election results

Before the elections, the top two weeks for politics page views according to Ozone were both in September 2022: the week that saw both Liz Truss become prime minister and the death of the Queen, and then the week of Queen’s funeral.

Press Gazette previously reported that the Queen’s death saw the biggest traffic surge to UK newsbrands since the 2020 US election according to Ipsos iris data.

Aside from the week of polling day on 4 July, the next biggest week for politics page views during the election campaign was the week beginning 3 June which was when Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced he would stand as an MP and also when Sunak left the D-Day 80th commemorations in France early to do an ITV News interview.

That week saw more than 75.3 million politics page views – at the time making it a record high since Ozone has been capturing data – which was up 12% week-on-week. It beat the week of Truss’s appointment as PM and the Queen’s death by 1%.

The same week also had the second highest overall news and politics page views for the campaign on 173.3 million, with 12% week-on-week growth also attributed in part to the story about the disappearance of TV doctor Michael Mosley in Greece and the subsequent discovery of his body.

Politics page views fell for each of the subsequent three weeks although the 60.4 million recorded in the week commencing 17 June was still 12% higher than the 2024 weekly average to date.

The first full week of campaigning, between 27 May and 2 June, had seen a 6% week-on-week rise in engagement with politics coverage with 67.3 million page views almost a third higher than the 2024 average to that point.

Similarly news and politics page views overall peaked first in the week commencing 3 June on 173.3 million before falling – although they did actually increase each week again until the results.

Ozone said it had 150 million page views to the big policy verticals throughout the campaign: healthcare saw 59.3 million page views, economy had 32.8 million, defence (led by Sunak’s national service pledge) was on 31.9 million, immigration was on 11.7 million and the environment saw 11.6 million.

In May, which also included the local elections at the start of the month as well as the general election being called and the start of campaigning, there were 263 million page views to politics content in total - 60% higher than the monthly average.

Generally, Ozone said at the start of the campaign, politics page views rise by 39% on average during major events.

It said: "During the past three years, in weeks when major events have dominated the political agenda – from elections and policy changes to resignations and new appointments – Politics page views are typically nearly two-fifths higher than the weekly average."

Starmer wins battle for share of voice among party leaders

The Ozone data also showed that across the six-week campaign Starmer received a 40% share of the voice among the party leaders before Labour won with a 34% share of the vote.

Although Sunak was more prominent in coverage before he called the election, the ex-PM was second place with a 35% share of the voice throughout the campaign, with a 24% eventual vote share.

Reform's Farage had a 19% share of the voice with a 14% vote share while Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, whose campaign was characterised by stunts such as bungee jumps and water slides, had a 5% share of the voice but a 12% vote share.

Farage's share of coverage jumped by 15 percentage points in the week he announced he would run as an MP and he even briefly overtook Sunak in the week commencing 17 June when he told the BBC the West had provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine and received critical coverage including in the Mail on Sunday.

Media sentiment towards each of the main parties in the 2024 election campaign

Content sentiment analysis also shared by Ozone showed that three of the four biggest parties by vote share - Labour, Reform UK and Lib Dems - had a very similar level of positive coverage at the end of the campaign on 31%, 30% and 32% respectively.

The Conservatives were behind on 22% having failed to see a similar jump from 19% of coverage being positive at the start of the campaign compared to Labour (which also started on 19%) and the Lib Dems (which started on 17%).

Labour's negative coverage fell by the most from 47% to 38%.

Reform saw a fall in positive coverage from 44% to 30% over the six weeks although negative sentiment stayed steady at just over a third. However there were some blips in the middle: in the week beginning 3 June, when Farage announced his candidacy, Reform's negative coverage was on 59% while in the week of 24 June which saw a racism row for the party led by Channel 4 News reporting its negative sentiment rose to 61%, equal with the Conservatives, and its positive sentiment fell to 8%, below the Tories' 12%.

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Lisa Nandy, the UK’s new culture secretary, has a history of backing the BBC licence fee and praising local journalism in her constituency.

But Nandy has said the BBC’s structure needs reform and that it should be “owned and directed by licence fee holders”.

The Labour manifesto stated only that the party will “work constructively with the BBC and our other public service broadcasters so they continue to inform, educate and entertain people, and support the creative economy by commissioning distinctively British content”.

It adds that “Conservative attacks on our globally respected institutions – universities, courts and the BBC – have undermined our soft power, traditionally a source of great strength, and diminished our influence”.

Nandy was named by new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer as culture secretary on Friday after his shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire lost her seat.

Nandy, who has been the MP for Wigan since 2010, takes over from Conservative culture secretary Lucy Frazer and becomes the ninth person to hold the role in seven years.

She has familial connections to the media: her mother, Luise Nandy, was a current affairs TV producer at Granada best known for the long-running news review show What The Papers Say and the studio debate programme Gloves Off. And her stepfather was the well-respected investigative journalist Ray Fitzwalter, who was the longest-serving editor of Granada’s World In Action.

Lisa Nandy on the BBC licence fee

In 2020, when she was taking part in the Labour leadership election ultimately won by Starmer, Nandy wrote for Labour List about her views on how the BBC should evolve.

She wrote: “I would protect the licence fee and my government would not hold the BBC to ransom over appointments and funding… To maintain the BBC as an institution, it must be accountable to those who fund it – the British people.

“Instead of tokenistic consultation with the people who pay for it, and backroom negotiations with the government, the BBC should move to a model of being owned and directed by licence fee holders – who can help decide the trade-offs that the BBC must make to secure its future. This will mean a new structure for the BBC board that focuses on genuine public representation and participation – and greater commitments to transparency.”

At a leadership hustings, she explained further: “You’ve also got to actually ask yourself who owns the media and who runs it? I’d like to see us mutualise the BBC so that those decisions are taken by a wider group of people.

“I’d like to see us not just move the headquarters of Channel 4 and the BBC out of London but commissioning power too, so what gets made and what gets said is not determined by a small group of men behind a desk in Westminster and Whitehall.”

Being “mutualised” means being owned by, and run for the benefit of, members (in this case, licence fee payers) who would get greater power in key decision-making processes such as voting for the board. John Lewis and Co-op are two businesses run with a mutual model.

What else did Lisa Nandy say in her 2020 plan for media?

Also in her Labour List article about the media in 2020, Nandy criticised the Conservative government’s “Trumpian tactics”.

“The media is under attack like never before. As ministers boycott news channels at their choosing, the Prime Minister avoids press conferences in favour of pre-screened questions from the public, and Downing Street excludes selected journalists from briefings. All to sow the seeds of division and to undermine what should be the central job of our reporters: to get to the truth.”

She also highlighted the difficulties facing local journalism due to falling ad revenues.

“My Labour government would tax social media companies to create a fund to support local media and investigative journalism, building on the local democracy reporters scheme.”

Nandy’s own plans as Labour leader are unlikely to align exactly with Starmer’s but may give an indication of her priorities and views on the media industry.

Lisa Nandy on BBC devolution, attacks and Richard Sharp scandal

In 2015 Nandy praised the BBC for producing more of its output from outside London, saying in a Commons debate about devolution that its partial relocation to Media City in Salford had been “an absolutely stunning success for many of my constituents and the region.

“It has brought a completely fresh perspective to the way in which our public debate is conducted, because the guests and presenters now come from a much broader area than a small few miles around the capital.”

Seven years later she said of the move: “In the north-west of England, which I call home, we had the foresight to bring Media City to Salford. That was not just about the economic regeneration of one of the most disadvantaged areas of the country; it was also a key measure that started to rebalance the national debate that determined who had a voice and who got a place and was reflected in our national story.”

Nandy has made several other mentions of the BBC in Hansard, including to show support for its journalists under pressure around the world and press freedom in general.

In a September 2020 debate about the Belarus presidential elections, Nandy said: “The BBC Russian service is a key source of impartial information for the people of Belarus. I am very concerned about the potential for both funding cuts at the World Service and the targeting of its journalists.”

She asked then-foreign secretary Dominic Raab if he would “commit to ensuring that Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office funding for this service is protected in any upcoming spending review? What is his Department doing to support BBC journalists and protect them from attacks on them and their families?”

Closer to home, in June 2021 she shared Labour’s “unequivocal condemnation of the targeting of a BBC journalist outside Parliament yesterday,” referring to a group of people verbally abusing Newsnight political editor Nicholas Watt. Six people were later convicted.

“Press freedom is under attack around the world; we must defend it here,” Nandy added.

Nandy has also previously weighed into the controversy surrounding former BBC chairman Richard Sharp, when questions emerged about the former Goldman Sachs banker’s role in then-prime minister Boris Johnson getting an £800,000 loan guarantee.

Asked by the BBC whether Sharp should resign, Nancy said he made “significant errors of judgment” and his position was “increasingly untenable”.

Local journalism: ‘Lifeblood of local democracy’

In 2018 Nandy was among the MPs to speak in the Commons after Johnston Press, then the fourth largest regional news publisher in the UK, went into administration.

The Yorkshire Post and Scotsman publisher was saved by a bondholder takeover that saw the investors wipe out more than 60% of the £220m debt owed to them. It has since been sold on to David Montgomery and formed the initial basis for National World.

Nandy said of Johnston Press: “We do not need a review to tell us that this is a story of pure greed. A handful of people have creamed off huge profits and left a debt-laden struggling company in the hands of hedge funds, with staff yet again paying the price. That hedge fund rescue package will be of little comfort to smaller titles like the Wigan Evening Post and the Wigan Observer that will not prove lucrative for asset strippers and face a very uncertain future at best.

“Will the Secretary of State intervene to ensure that long-term guarantees are provided for those smaller titles? They are not just the lifeblood of local democracy, as he rightly said; they are also the only talent pipeline left for young working-class people to break into journalism, and those young people are today left wondering what on earth the future holds for them.”

Six years earlier amid a round of cuts at Johnston Press Nandy raised concerns about local jobs: “There is often good coverage in my local newspaper, the Wigan Evening Post, but it is not always comfortable, as should be the case.

“As the Minister knows, Johnston Press, which recently announced huge losses, employs people in Wigan and elsewhere. Can he tell us whether he can get some assurances from the management of Johnston Press for staff who are obviously concerned about their future?”

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Press Gazette’s editorial team report back from two of the hottest election night parties in town.

Politico’s party was billed as an all-nighter and Bron Maher set out with plans to see it through to the bitter end:

5:30pm: Press Gazette editor-in-chief Dominic Ponsford divvies up the haul of politically-themed booze he has been sent by Sky News (along with a pair of Adidas Sambas). UK editor Charlotte Tobitt drinks a Beth Rigbeer, Dom has a DaiqRishi and I have a MargKeirita, which, in a positive omen for the presumptive next regime, is surprisingly strong. I convince myself that this is not, in fact, a very stupid way to start a 12-hour night.

7:20pm: The Politico bash is being hosted in the offices of PR firm Brunswick. Unlike some of the other publisher-sponsored events going on, this one promises that it will run all night: bacon sandwiches and barista-made coffee are billed for the morning. Arriving guests are handed an election night bingo game and a card on which they are invited to guess the exit poll seat predictions to win prizes. While typing this passage up I direct a lost Lionel Barber toward the bathroom.

7:30pm: The party is taking place in a wide lounge bounded by a low stage on the far end and a bar along another. TVs beam Sky and GB News to the broader partygoing group, but the press room gets BBC News. The organisers expect tonight’s party to be largely populated by journalists, comms folk and the people that make up the glue of Westminster politics: fewer MPs, more aides and lobbyists.

8:30pm: There’s limitless booze on hand. There is also a lot of chatter about what might be going on at the other parties tonight. We speculate as to whether any of their attendees will come here once their taps are turned off at midnight.

9:30pm: The room is packed. The few present members of the outgoing regime leave to spend the moment of judgement with their chosen family at Tory HQ. At this point Politico’s journalists are still merrily hanging about socialising, but for most of them this is very much the start of a long work night: be it the flagship Playbook email or the various industry-focused newsletters, Politico’s readers are expecting to wake up in the morning with something in their inbox that can explain the new world. Stepping into the quiet of the bathroom, I find my ears are ringing.

9:50pm: People huddle toward the front of the room like they’re waiting for a new year’s countdown. The hosts bring out espresso martinis to help carry everyone through the immense span of time remaining: the first result won’t be for another hour, and it will be five before we learn the fates of numerous Conservative ministers.

9:59pm: The crowd is giddy. The screen switches from Sky to BBC News: turns out free Sambas cannot, in fact, overcome tradition. The TV is also late — a BBC push notification declaring the exit poll arrives a full 30 seconds before the screen gets there, but anyone who notices gamely stays schtum.

10:00pm: A solitary shocked giggle precedes a swell of amazement and whoops — and then the din immediately drops back as people chew the exit poll over. It’s a big majority, no doubt, but it’s not as big as some of the MRPs were projecting. Audio of the moment below:

10:10pm: People are reading Twitter. A snap discussion of the results by Politico staff on stage is kept admirably concise.

10:30pm: Three enormous crates of pizza appear, provided by Brunswick clients Domino’s.

11:00pm: Away from the buzz, it’s all heads-down in the press room. The next morning’s edition of Playbook will be more than 6,000 words long.

11:05pm: Word arrives that, over at the New Statesman party at the National Liberal Club, they are already on their second play-through of D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better.

11:20pm: The incredible amounts of pizza have disappeared, and with them two-thirds of the crowd. Those who remain are enthusiastic, but I begin to grow concerned that this party may not sustain itself through the wee hours of the night, depriving me of precious colour. I just had a coffee, though, so I’m evidently not going anywhere.

11:30pm: At some point the television showing GB News has been turned off.

12:00am: The photographer heads home. It’s still hours yet before the results really pick up. A few clusters of people are still hanging around, but there’s no sign we’re about to see an influx of partygoers seeking safe port after being kicked out elsewhere. As much as I had planned on milking this night for all the copy it was worth, I am starting to feel as though I am intruding on someone else’s work space.

12:30am: I’ve seen enough: it turns out not even a historic election result and limitless alcohol can overcome Londoners’ impulses to go home at midnight. Hours before Rishi Sunak would do the same, I concede defeat.

Things really did get better at the New Statesman election bash

The New Statesman election night party at the National Liberal Club had a strong 1997 vibe and, yes, D-Ream was on the playlist – writes Dominic Ponsford.

Big names spotted at the bar included columnists Janice Turner and Suzanne Moore, Sunday Times executive editor Ben Preston, Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, former Observer editor Roger Alton, novelist Howard Jacobson and many more political and media luminaries. The club’s cavernous function room was packed and there was a sense that, like The Sun, folk were flocking to the winning team.

Editor Jason Cowley introduced “a promising young journalist” called Andrew Marr to kick off proceedings with his take on the campaign so far. Freed from the shackles of BBC impartiality Marr can tell us what he really thinks nowadays and he said, far from the campaign being boring, he had watched the implosion of the Conservative Party with unrestrained glee.

Marr drew big laughs when he read out the start of Allister Heath’s election day comment piece in The Telegraph which was headlined: “The UK is about to enter a nightmare much darker than anyone yet realises.” Marr juxtaposed it with a Telegraph business article which said: “Traders are being urged to buy British stocks and bonds amid predictions of a crushing Labour election victory.”

Guest speaker David Lamm said when (not if) he starts work at the Foreign Office he will be much nicer to the Europeans. He also noted that in the whole 20th century, Labour were in power for just 23 years, so this was a moment to enjoy and savour.

We watched the release of the exit poll on big screens (all tuned to the BBC) and it was greeted with rapture from the largely left-leaning crowd ahead of the first Things Can Only Get Better dance- and sing-along.

There were no cocktails on offer, just wine and bottled lager, but hard liquor was not needed last night – most were high instead on the sweet smell of success.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan arrived at 10.45pm to give what felt more like an American political rally speech with pauses for cheering. It was short but sweet, setting the mood for the rest of the night as people began to flock towards the photobooth clutching cardboard cutouts of Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Ed Miliband.

The post How Politico and New Statesman election parties toasted Labour’s landslide appeared first on Press Gazette.

The Times has turned off comments under its leader article declaring it will not endorse a party in the 2024 general election after readers chastised the paper for fence-sitting.

The paper of record declared on polling day that despite “a general desire to see the Conservatives gone” among the electorate, Labour’s lack of clarity over its plans for government meant it “cannot ­expect an endorsement”.

The Times’ decision cuts a contrast with sister paper The Sun, which on Wednesday announced “Sir Keir has won the right to take charge”.

It has also sat poorly with subscribers to The Times, who made their feelings known underneath the leader article.

“What a useless leader article,” wrote one commenter. “You have no sense of where the country is. Get rid of [editor Tony] Gallagher pronto!”

Another wrote: “From The Thunderer to Passive Aggressive Whimperer. What a waste of a once great reputation.”

Only Times subscribers are able to comment under articles on its website and they must use their real names.

At some point on Thursday morning The Times turned off comments for the article, in the process making those that had already been published invisible. Carbon Brief editor Leo Hickman has screenshotted some of the deleted messages and posted them to X.

Turning off the comments provoked further irritation among Times subscribers, who began posting under another leader article published on Thursday instead.

“Shutting down the loyal readers comments on that awful editorial is a new low for this editor,” read one comment. “Let’s hope that change does not stop at No. 10 Downing Street but extends to the editor’s chair at The Times. We want our newspaper back.”

Another read: “Wondering when comments here will be turned off too. Guess what – if I wanted to read the Daily Mail I’d buy that. Let me know when The Times resumes normal service and gets a new editor.”

It is not the first time The Times faced backlash in the comment section: in June 2022 the paper prompted criticism from subscribers after it spiked an unflattering story about Boris Johnson and his now-wife Carrie.

[Read more: Times subscribers revolt over Carrie story spiked for ‘legal reasons’]

Sun’s Labour endorsement follows years of Starmer-bashing

The Times and Sun’s endorsements echo those of 1997, when The Sun shifted course to back Labour while The Times opted not to endorse anyone specific, instead generally urging support for eurosceptic candidates.

It also marks an abrupt tone change from The Sun, which earlier this year asked in a leader column: “How can the public trust spineless Keir Starmer after dozens of cynical U-turns?”

The Sun has consistently backed the winning party in UK general elections for decades, but there was some speculation this time as to whether the paper would bring itself to back Keir Starmer given his involvement in the aftermath of the phone-hacking scandal.

As Director of Public Prosecutions Starmer made the call that 20 Sun journalists should stand trial under the new offence of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office. The prosecution took a heavy toll on journalists and their families and achieved no convictions.

As one Conservative official told Politico’s Playbook: “Some of us still remember Keir Starmer as DPP giving the police carte blanche to drag Sun journalists out of their beds at dawn and into jail cells, all on the whims of Labour MP Tom Watson and other free press haters. It’s a shame memories are so short.”

The post Times turns off comments on its election non-endorsement after reader backlash appeared first on Press Gazette.

Most UK national newspapers have voted Labour in the 2024 general election with several previously Conservative-supporting newspapers switching allegiance in their endorsements.

Update: Daily Mail gracious in defeat as Fleet Street reacts to Labour landslide

Previously Conservative-supporting titles, including The Sun, Sunday Times and Financial Times, have backed Labour in their leader columns.

The Daily Star, which has previously remained neutral, also called for change on its election day front page.

As with the 1997 general election (when Labour’s Tony Blair won a landslide) The Times has not endorsed any political party (then it urged readers to vote for candidates who were against further integration with the EU).

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats have received no national newspaper endorsements.

When all the circulations of UK-wide daily and Sunday newspapers are added up and collated according to election endorsements, the results show Fleet Street evenly split between Labour, Conservatives and Neutral/Don’t Know with 1.9 million in terms of newspaper circulation backing each position.

While more national newspapers have voted Labour than Conservative, the support of the top-selling Mail titles plus the Telegraph and Express titles mean in circulation terms the result is a dead heat.

When non UK-wide titles like City AM, the Evening Standard and Daily Record are included the balance is tipped in favour of Labour.

The Labour Party's 2024 general election newspaper (and one magazine) endorsements:

Daily Star: Labour/Count Binface

"It seems nailed on that Labour and Sir Keir Starmer will walk to victory.

"To be honest, all he has had to do is not completely balls things up like his rivals. But what is clear is that it is absolutely time for a change.

"We thought Count Binface was probably the best option but we're willing to give this other fella and his party a chance too."

The Sun: Labour

The day before the general election The Sun teased its election day front page, which declared: "As Britain goes to the polls, it's time for a new manager (and we don't mean sack Southgate)".

The paper also published its leader column laying out its position, saying that although Rishi Sunak "has many policies which we support" the Conservatives "have become a divided rabble, more interested in fighting themselves than running the country...

"Put bluntly, the Tories are exhausted. They need a period in Opposition to unite around a common set of principles."

The Murdoch-owned title rejected Nigel Farage's Reform UK, dubbing it "a one-man band which at best can win only a handful of MPs" despite policies which it said had "struck a chord with millions".

"There are still plenty of concerns about Labour," the paper said, including its plans on immigration and its failure to clarify its tax position, "but, by dragging his party back to the centre ground of British politics for the first time since Tony Blair was in No10, Sir Keir has won the right to take charge.

"We will hold Labour to account, without fear or favour. But we wish them every success."

As with other right-leaning titles, it marks the first time The Sun has endorsed the Labour Party since 2005, the last time the party was led by Tony Blair.

The Evening Standard: Labour

The Evening Standard, which backed the Conservative Party in the 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections, reversed course the day before the 2024 election and endorsed the Labour Party.

The London freesheet said Rishi Sunak "has turned out to be a disappointing Prime Minister" while Keir Starmer had "relentlessly reformed Labour from a party under investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission over its handling of antisemitism to a plausible alternative government".

The paper sounded a warning over the possibility of a so-called 'supermajority' for Labour, saying the UK "needs a serious, sensible, centre-Right alternative".

But it concluded: "Ultimately, after 14 years in office, the Tories have earned the right to lose. It is clear that this city wants change and that you have probably already made your mind up that Labour can be that change."

The Sunday Times: Labour

Condemning the record of the Conservatives, The Sunday Times said in its leader column: "The period since 2016 has been defined by political chaos that has fatally distracted the political class from those issues that matter most to voters — healthcare, schools and the economy.

"Britain now needs a radical reset. If the Tories are due a period in opposition, that can only mean a Labour government. Starmer should be praised for hauling his party back into the mainstream."

Financial Times: Labour

The Financial Times said in its leader column: "We believe in liberal democracy, free trade and private enterprise, and an open, outward-looking Britain…

"The Labour party of Sir Keir Starmer is better placed today to provide the leadership the country needs…

"Much of the country hankers for a fresh start. Labour should be given the opportunity to provide it."

The Independent

Despite its name, The Independent does go in for election endorsements and this time it has backed Labour.

The online-only title said: "Labour promises change and offers hope. In Rachel Reeves, Sir Keir will have a chancellor seen as sound on the economy, who promises to keep a steady hand on the wheel of the nation’s finances, after the wild lane-changing of the brief – but immensely damaging – tenure of Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng. We hope their mantra will be to be compensatory and not too confiscatory."

The Observer: Labour

The Observer signalled its backing for Labour with a front-page editorial saying voters have "a historic opportunity to evict one of the worst governments this country has ever endured".

The Guardian: Labour

The Guardian has endorsed Labour again, after supporting Jeremy Corbyn through gritted teeth in 2019 while acknowledging his "obdurate handling of the antisemitism crisis".

This time The Guardian's backing was less equivocal. The leader column on Friday 29 June, for publication in its Saturday print edition (the biggest sale of the week), said: "Labour has climbed out of the crater of its 2019 defeat, and it stands on the brink of power with some eye-catching policies.

"On the environment, workers’ rights and housebuilding, it signals a break with the past, and a very welcome desire to save capitalism from its failures and excesses. Its most popular policies are interventionist: banning junk food and creating a publicly owned green energy company. How refreshing to hear that government programmes and stronger trade unions make economies more productive and equitable."

The Economist: Labour

The Economist endorsed the Labour Party on Thursday 27 June, marking its first endorsement of the party since 2005.

The magazine said Labour "is right in its diagnosis that nothing matters more than solving Britain’s stagnant productivity" and that Keir Starmer "deserves credit" for breaking with the policies of predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, but criticised the leader for running "a maddeningly cautious campaign".

It likened making a case for the Conservative Party's virtues to "a teacher struggling to say something nice about the class troublemaker", claiming: "Rishi Sunak is a better prime minister than Liz Truss, though if praise came any fainter it would be invisible."

On the Liberal Democrats, the magazine said "the logic that led us to endorse them in 2019 no longer holds". In 2019, it argued, the Lib Dems were the better option compared with "Boris Johnson's Brexit-obsessed Tories and Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, a hard-left charisma vacuum".

The Economist endorsed the Lib Dems in both the 2017 and 2019 elections and David Cameron's Tories in 2010 and (as a coalition with the Lib Dems) in 2015. It endorsed Tony Blair's Labour in 2001 and 2005 — but not 1997, when he won his first, landslide victory.

Daily Record: Labour

Scotland's Daily Record has announced it is asking its readers to vote Labour after not explicitly backing any single party at a general election since 2010 (when it also endorsed Labour).

It said in a major front page splash on Tuesday 25 June: "This election is not about independence. It's about poverty, spiralling mortgages, soaring bills, the cost of living crisis, a crashed economy, dodgy contracts, broken public services, a failed Brexit, Partygate. It's about kicking this vile and corrupt Conservative government out of office."

In a leader column, the Reach-owned Record said readers should vote tactically in some areas though: "The exceptions are the seats in the north-east and south of Scotland where the Tories and the SNP are in a two-horse race.

"Labour is not strong in these regions and a vote for the SNP is the best way to topple the Tories.

"This is particularly true in the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat where we hope the SNP candidate defeats Douglas Ross.

"But ultimately this General Election is not about the SNP. Many Scots continue to support independence but the election on July 4 will not deliver this political outcome."

Daily Mirror: Labour

The Daily Mirror declared itself early for Labour, writing in a "Voice of the Mirror" editorial published on Friday 24 May that "the new generation needs a Labour government more than ever".

The editorial, which accompanied an interview with Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner in Saturday's Mirror, said that "there are many reasons why we need Labour to win on July 4 but chief among them must be the chance to secure a better future for our children.

"As Angela Rayner tells the Mirror, most young people have only known life under the Tories. They deserved so much better. The Conservatives have stood by as more and more children are brought up in poverty.

"They didn’t recruit enough teachers and cut funds for one-to-one tuition and music lessons. Tens of thousands are being taught in buildings which are falling apart because they cancelled Labour’s rebuilding programme.

"And when Covid struck, Rishi Sunak refused funds to help kids catch up on lost learning. The Tories have robbed too many children of the chance to fulfil their potential. That’s why this generation needs a Labour government more than ever."

The Mirror is an avowedly Labour-leaning newspaper, disclosing on its website that it "has backed the Labour Party in every election since 1945".

Sunday Mirror: Labour

The Sunday Mirror said: "Britain deserves change after 14 years of chaotic Tory rule."

The Conservative Party's 2024 general election newspaper endorsements

Daily Telegraph: Conservative

The Telegraph's endorsement of the Conservatives was published online less than three hours after Sunak announced the election date on Wednesday 22 May.

The newspaper said: "The unarguable truth facing voters is that they face a straight choice between Sir Keir and Mr Sunak. It is similarly unarguable that a Labour government might well bring change, but it will not be of the good kind.

"Labour would tax more, regulate more, be weaker in defence of the national interest and be far more relaxed about mass migration and the excesses of green ideologues.

"The Tories can hardly claim that their own record is unblemished in any of these areas. But the party must now pull together behind the Prime Minister and hammer home the message that the situation will be much worse if Sir Keir enters No 10."

Although The Daily Telegraph's print front page the day after the announcement splashed on the pun "Things can only get wetter" in reference to Sunak's speech in the rain with the New Labour anthem "Things Can Only Get Better" blaring in the background, the front page analysis nonetheless maintained his "message came across loud and clear".

Election night 2024: How broadcasters plan to report results

Mail on Sunday: Conservative

The Mail on Sunday has given the Tories its full-throated support. Its last pre-election front page led with the headline: "Rishi warning: Starmer will wreck Britain in just 100 days".
In a full-page leader column, the title admitted the current Conservative government has been an "unsatisfactory and disappointing administration" but it said Labour would be "much worse" and so urged its readers to "vote Conservative on Thursday".

Sunday Express: Conservative

The Sunday Express led on Rishi Sunak's claim: "Starmer to 'wreck Britain in 100 days". Despite its previous strong back for Brexit, the title warned readers against voting Reform in a full-page leader column because "you will be helping Labour candidates".

It warned that a big majority for Keir Starmer would give him a "free rein to transform Britain into a socialist state, with higher taxes, more regulations and closer links to the European Union".

It said: "If you have any doubt he is the right person, the only sensible option is to vote Conservative"

Sunday Telegraph: Conservative

The Sunday Telegraph also gave its last pre-election front page to the Conservatives with the headline: Labour will bankrupt every generation, warns Sunak".

Its leader column focused on Labour's shortcomings, rather than Conservative achievements noting its "vindictive assault on private education", adding: "Labour is the party of cancellation, culture wars and decolonisation". It urged its readers to vote Conservative because Labour would be "dramatically worse" than the Tories.

Daily Express: Conservative

On election day the Daily Express published a full-throttle front-page (and online) backing of the Conservatives.

It said: "Today is a day of reckoning. The Conservative Party faces a punishing pounding at the ballot box. We believe Labour's unchecked power would diminish this great country of ours. Your frustration that not enough has been done to protect traditional Tory values is understandable. And it is, of course, your inalienable right to use your vote as a protest though the price might be very high. That is why we will continue carrying the torch of Conservatism until it is burning bright again. In the nation's interest we urge you to... vote Tory."

Other 2024 election endorsements

City AM: Anyone but the Conservatives

City AM said in its leader column: "...for now, it is hard to conclude anything other than this: this government is out of energy, out of ideas, and should, therefore, be out of office.

"Does this mean a full-throated endorsement of Keir Starmer’s Labour? That is, unfortunately, beyond us."

The Times: Don't know

In a leader article published just in time for the election, The Times said: "This newspaper wants the next government to succeed, and it will not be ungenerous in praise if that is the case. But Labour has yet to earn the trust of the British people."

Metro: Neutral

Metro's front page on 4 July was thoroughly neutral, with a graphic stating "Britain goes to the polls" and headline that "the nation decides" although the sub-head added: "But top Tory admits Labour 'likely to win'."

The website also played it straight although it had an ad takeover on election day from the Labour Party urging people to "vote Labour today".

The i: Neutral

DMGT-owned the i's front page on polling day made its neutrality clear, telling readers it is "over to you".

It said: "Only one UK national newspaper has never supported a political party - and never will. The i paper = politics without the spin."

And editor Oly Duff told readers: "No one gets an easy ride. Not the Tories, Labour or Nigel Farage. We are funded by readers [through subscriptions and newsstand sales], so we are free to investigate anyone we like. We are not in the pocket of any media owner or special interest, so we can tell you what’s really going on. That’s why we have one of the highest trust ratings in UK media."

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The chief executive of Total Politics Group, Mark Wallace, says the business is “in a profitable place” as its titles cover the first election since the group was formed in 2022.

The company, which owns titles including Politics Home and Parliament’s The House magazine and holds a majority stake in website Conservative Home, makes its money mainly from events and advertising.

Total Politics Group was formed after the Lord Ashcroft-owned Political Holdings Limited, which already owned Conservative Home, bought several titles from Merit Group in October 2022. (Ashcroft is also the largest shareholder in Merit Group.)

The new business is yet to publish its first accounts and Wallace cautioned that “when you undertake an acquisition there’s quite a big discovery process to do”. But he said: “I think it’s fair to say that we’re in a profitable place.”

The last accounts for Merit Group prior to the acquisition, covering the year to 31 March 2022, recorded a loss for the year of £1.6m. The “political engagement” business segment that included The House, Holyrood, The Parliament and Politics Home was the largest part of the company by revenue, contributing £9.8m that year and £7.5m the year before. At the time, the company employed 109 staff in editorial and production roles.

[Read more: Lord Ashcroft’s Political Holdings agrees £4.5m deal to buy Politics Home and other Dods media assets]

Free journalism can pay when written for ‘high-value, high-impact’ audiences

Print copies of The House, Holyrood and The Parliament magazines are distributed for free to parliamentarians in Westminster, Edinburgh and Brussels, respectively — although it is possible to purchase subscriptions to them.

The rest of TPG’s portfolio of publications, including Politics Home and trade titles Civil Service World, Public Technology and Training Journal, are free to read online.

Wallace said: “If you really want to deliver advertising that just goes to the ten people who definitely, definitely will be around a cabinet minister on Tuesday morning or something, you could do a lot worse than make sure you’re on the right set of emails that go out in Politics Home, through The House magazine, through Holyrood” and its other publications.

Wallace described the company’s business model as increasingly being about “integrated campaigns” — encouraging a sponsor to run ads through all the channels available in the Total Politics Group, among them print advertising, promotional content, digital advertising, newsletters, website takeovers and events. He contrasted such campaigns against “fire and forget, one-shot adverts”.

To that end, Wallace emphasised that policymakers are not the only relevant readers of Total Politics content.

“The millions of pairs of eyes that go on across those titles are all voters and in a democratic system are all part of an electorate too…

“If you want to just deliver a message to a policymaker, and the policymaker has no particular reason to believe that the wider electorate has any interest in or concern about the issue you want to talk about, you’re probably not doing your whole job.”

At the time of Total Politics’ 2022 pre-merger accounts Politics Home was averaging above 300,000 unique monthly users, the documents say.

Wallace said the pandemic had increased corporate interest in public affairs, particularly in the technology and digital sectors.

Until Covid, he said, there were “a lot of businesses that didn’t have any public affairs activity, or maybe outsourced it to an agency that would send them an email that they might or might not read about what’s being said in Parliament somewhere in one of their many markets…

“A lot of people have realised that being part of a conversation before you need it is a better thing to do than racing to find out who on earth you might need to talk to.”

At multinational advertising agencies, Wallace said, “the way marketing budgets are often spent is… about numbers, and it’s about really large scale”, rather than TPG’s “really high-value, high impact audiences that are not always gigantic in number”.

But despite this, a recently-concluded campaign run by Total Politics and Mastercard is currently shortlisted for the PPA Award for commercial partnership of the year. The campaign emphasised the ways card payments might help economic growth in the UK.

“We’re having increasing success working with larger agencies, working with marketing activity and so on,” Wallace said. “But that’s an ongoing process of growth, I think there’s quite a lot of expansion to do there.”

Selling ads for reds and blues

Wallace said the commercial significance of an election to Total Politics Group was that it “creates a huge amount of opportunity to reach new readers who can stay with you after an election”.

Asked whether a party political site like Conservative Home could expect the value of its ad inventory to drop should its side lose power, Wallace noted that the blog began when the Conservative Party was in “the depths of opposition”.

He said: “As everybody’s noticed in the course of the last decade, you want to make sure that you’ve got flexibility and you’ve got diversification within your business model.”

One example of that diversification is the deal announced in April whereby Total Politics Group will take over ad sales for Conservative Home and Labour List, which were previously dealt with by Paul Staines’ Messagespace.

Total Politics Group does not own any of Labour List, which is effectively the Labour counterpart to Conservative Home.

Wallace said there was “more overlap in readership on some of these sites that people imagine”.

Wallace, himself a previous chief executive of Conservative Home, said he had been a reader of Labour List since it was founded.

“I remember seeing, a couple of years ago, that Conservative Home was the most-read media outlet among Conservative MPs — but it was also quite strongly-read among Labour MPs, because any savvy politician will tell you it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on what the other side thinks.”

The more important thing, though, was that Total Politics Group treated the brands neutrally.

“That nonpartisan nature of our business is really crucial, because it’s about trust,” he said.

“Our journalism is valuable because it’s expert, but also because it’s trusted. And that comes down to the neutrality of us as a publisher… the independence of our journalists, not just from outside influence, but their independence from me.”

Wallace left the impression that, while the election was editorially exciting, the business had far more of a focus on what follows.

“We’re already working very hard in preparation for what happens afterwards,” he said. “The next edition of The House magazine will land with new MPs, a couple of days after they take their seats and arrive in Westminster for the first time. And for a lot of them that is a part of a rite of passage.”

The pace of things won’t stop once the new intake of MPs have found their offices: autumn means party conference season, and Wallace said Total Politics Group typically runs “100 to 120 fringe events across five different party conferences in September and October”.

“It’d be a mistake to call an election campaign a ‘calm before the storm’,” he said, “but election day itself might be. We get to take a deep breath for a few hours while people are voting, and then after that it’s getting on with things and making sure we can get under the skin of this new world that every election creates.”

The House magazine highly commended at Private Eye’s Paul Foot Award ceremony

Last week The House magazine was highly commended by the judging panel for Private Eye’s prestigious investigative journalism prize, the Paul Foot Award, over freelance Justine Smith’s work on the “crisis” in children’s mental health service provision.

The panel called it “a compelling and important read, putting the plight of vulnerable children right in front of MPs in parliament’s trade magazine”.

Wallace said: “You can’t have a better accolade than that for investigative journalism. And for a publication which is not, in its core, an investigative enterprise.

“But that’s something that comes out of having good editors — great editors — with the freedom and independence to innovate, backed by decent resourcing to do a good job. And so that’s something I’ll always try and champion.”

Total Politics pays freelances up to around £500 per thousand words, which compares well to other titles. Asked about this, Wallace said: “We have to all keep a watch on how we can control our costs.

“But we also are, rightly and justifiably, opposed to salami slicing. I think it’s really easy to cut costs and thereby destroy value.”

[Read more: Politics Home editor Alan White on standing out in a ‘crowded’ field and how Twitter ruins politics reporting]

The post How Total Politics is making un-paywalled political journalism pay appeared first on Press Gazette.