Richard Desmond’s £1m donation to Ukip won’t make any difference to the outcome of the election. Naturally, it was greeted by Ukip’s leader, Nigel Farage.
Indeed, outside our media world, it is probably a matter of little consequence. (If Rupert Murdoch had done ther same it would have been front page news across the globe).
It did get front page billing, of course, in Desmond’s own two newspapers, the Daily Express (here) and Daily Star (here), but didn’t get page one coverage elsewhere.
The Times ran a page 2 lead; the Independent gave it top-of-the-page status and it was carried in its little sister, i, as well. There was only a cursory reference to it in a Daily Mail piece about the “union barons” having given Labour £1.6m.
The donation was also given a page lead in the Daily Telegraph, and it was covered online by the Guardian (here) and the Financial Times (here). But I couldn’t find anything in the Sun.
The Daily Mirror ran a short item in print that certainly bears repetition:
“A millionaire newspaper magnate yesterday poured £1m into Nigel Farage’s election coffers, bringing the fund to £1.3m. Richard Desmond, owner of Express newspapers, Television X and Red Hot adult channels, made the huge cash donation to Ukip just three weeks before polling day.
Labour received donations of nearly £2m during the first week of the election campaign but is still lagging behind the Tories thanks to David Cameron’s fatcat City pals”.
Its online report was somewhat straighter. Most of the papers that covered Desmond’s donation mentioned his reasoning. He was fed up with “the floppy-haired Eton club” (the Tories) and with “champagne socialists” (Labour). He wanted Ukip to be a thorn in the side of those parties, both of which he has supported at different times in the past.
I think it fair to say that Desmond genuinely does support Ukip’s two major policies - pulling out of the European Union and curbing immigration. I understand that he assured himself a long time ago that the party was not anti-Semitic and, having done so, moved ever closer to Farage.
The FT cites “people close to the multimillionaire” as saying that his support for Ukip is motivated partly by a desire to become a peer. Maybe, but it’s unclear whether Desmond - who is noted for his anti-establishment stance and intense dislike of “clubs” - would really be happy about donning the ermine.
Whether or not Desmond’s support for Ukip is a matter of political principle or personal ambition is beside the point when seen from the perspective of his editorial employees.
No wonder the National Union of Journalists referred to the donation as “sick-making”. In other words: how cynical of him to spend so much on a political whim when Express Newspapers’ journalists have been denied a pay rise for seven years?
Seen in terms of the total editorial budget for his newspapers, £1.3m is only a fraction. That’s beside the point, however. It is about perception, about fairness, about rewarding loyalty and hard work.
The journalists who produce the Daily and Sunday Express, and those who produce the Daily Star and its Sunday sister, do so against the odds.
You, like me, might not like the output. You, like me, might think that these newspapers have lost all credibility. You, like me, might think these titles are now so marginalised that they have no impact on the body politic.
Fair enough. But the journalists who write the articles, sub the copy, take the pictures and organise the production on a daily basis are professionals who, for a variety of reasons (mostly, of course, financial), merit understanding.
The bulk of the staff have no power whatsoever over the editorial direction of those papers. They must do what they are told. If there were plentiful jobs elsewhere, many would surely walk away. They cannot.
As the NUJ’s general secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, noted: it’s all very well for Desmond to say he backs Ukip because the party supports people who are struggling, but what about his own staff?
She contends that Desmond “has used Express Newspapers as a cash cow for years, starving the titles of the resources needed to produce decent newspapers” and “treating staff with contempt”.
Stanistreet’s point was reinforced by a member of the Express NUJ chapel who pointed out that Desmond “enjoyed a £360m windfall from the sale of Channel 5 last year and saw his Northern & Shell company record a £37m operating profit”.
I think Desmond bought the Express titles in 2000 in the belief that he would reverse the papers’ long declines. He boasted at the time that the Daily Express would surpass the Daily Mail, and, absurd as it was, he probably meant it.
It gradually dawned on him that trying to achieve that aim - as the unshaken owner and editor of the Mail knew well enough - would be impossible. Even if Desmaond had been willing to pump the profits he was making back into the business, it would not have come to pass.
So, a combination of thwarted ambition and the realisation that nothing could stem the relentless sales slide across the whole market, changed his attitude. He decided to laugh all the way to the bank instead.
It must be admitted that he did improve the Star’s sales for a while but he gradually became disillusioned with newspaper ownership. “Nothing I do makes any difference”, he often lamented.
His response was to cut the staffs on all four titles to the bone and, in recent months, he has been seeking a buyer for Express Newspapers, which remains very profitable.
He hasn’t had much luck yet. And I don’t believe he will change Ukip’s fortunes either.