The Daily Telegraph Goes Wobbly?

I'm afraid so.

It may or may not have anything to do with the recent purchase of The Telegraph Media Group by Axel Springer for a little more than half a billion pounds in mid 2026. Axel Springer also runs the German brands Bild and Die Welt (German-language brands billed as leaning "center-right"), as well as the US brands Politico and Business Insider (English-language brands leaning "center-left" or just wholly "left").

Nevertheless.

As a subscriber to The Telegraph (which isn't cheap on an annual basis), I'm getting a bit fed up. Most recently with the site's coverage of protests within the UK when it comes to immigration. There are four articles I can search on the site that have to do with a bit of a barney in Dover over the last couple of days:

There's an article titled Police Response to Dover Blockade 'too slow' says council, by reporter Will Bolton.

And The Dover Protests are Unacceptable by "Telegraph View"

And Who are the masked protestors who brought Dover to a standstill? by Patrick Sawyer

And Dover anti-migrant blockade exposes police failures by Patrick Sawyer and Steve Bird.

Along the way, and in one of these articles, some clown from The Telegraph says the following:

"...the protest, however, appears to be a calculated attempt to disrupt everyday life for ordinary people and businesses, and cause economic damage to a key infrastructure in order to grab attention."

As a (premium) subscriber to the site, I'm prohibited from responding to this slur, or commenting on any of these articles, because all comments have been closed, because, apparently I'm untrusted to weigh in on what The Telegraph apparently fears may be opinions from "the other side."

This so reminds me of my mother, from the mid 1950s, who wouldn't let us kids watch anything that wasn't on the BBC, when ITV (the new channel, and which she always referred to as "the rough lot") first came on the air. I guess I resent The Telegraph's lumping me with "the rough lot," and refusing to allow me the privilege, which I've paid for (at many times that which I pay for here) to comment.

But, Never Say Die! (I never do.)

I found an article from only a few days ago, about a group of Just Stop Oil protestors determined to disrupt Andy Burnham's first Prime Minister's Questions session this past Wednesday.

They, and their concerns, are generously and uncritically covered, without--apparently--any concern as to whether the activities of the Just Stop Oil gang might be messing about with the innate rights of "ordinary people", AKA British Citizens, to go about their business on a regular basis without Just Stop Oil "grabbing attention" and getting in their way.

The clue is in the headline: Just Stop Oil's PMQs protests bring Westminster traffic to a halt. After all, who cares about "Westminster traffic?" No "ordinary people," right? No parent trying to get his or her kid to school. No emergency medical or police vehicle trying to get through to deal with a crisis? No adult child desperately trying to reach a dementia-ridden parent. No NHS professionals trying to do their jobs. (Apparently--at least--we no longer have to stand at the side of the road and bang pots and pans for them either, and that is a good thing.)

Nobody important at all. Just Just Stop Oil. Which is all that counts. Because they mean so well.

Marvelously, I can comment all I want on that post, while The Telegraph seems totally fine with it all. (Here's what I hope is a behind-the-paywall link to the relevant article): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/800802c509ccf12d

Since I can still comment on this particular article, here's what I said:

Funny that I can still comment on this article.

There are four articles that come up in a search of DT posts having to do with the recent "Far Right" (😱) protests in Dover, on none of which we fee-paying subscribers are allowed to comment, and about which The Telegraph says:

"...the protest, however, appears to be a calculated attempt to disrupt everyday life for ordinary people and businesses, and cause economic damage to a key infrastructure in order to grab attention."

That's a disgusting slur.

See if you can find a single sentence, or even a dependent clause, which is even mildly critical, or editorializes in any way as to cast shade as to the motives of the "Just Stop Oil" protestors involved here.

Talk about tone deafness. That The Telegraph apparently feels no sense of self-awareness when it comes to reports on the "Just Stop Oil" crew, or the "Queers for Gaza" fools, or any other Left-Wing tools interested in preventing the majority of British people living their lives normally and without harassment and interruption, is deeply informative.

Thanks, DT, for "raising your colours."

The last sentence is a reference to "Operation Raise the Colours."

The bankrupt Birmingham City Council has recently announced that it is prepared to spend £2.6 million (about $3.5million) in order to take down the English and UK flags that have been erected on city telegraph and power poles (20,000, or so we are led to believe) at a cost of £132 pounds for each flag to be demounted. Again, my comments.

First one was:

So they can't get the bins emptied, but they can spend money to get the flags taken down.

Sorry, it's inside baseball. Or perhaps, if you're from West Bromwich, it's inside Baggies football. Most of "Brummagem" hasn't had its garbage picked up since March of 2025. The photos you can search on Google are truly horrifying.

My second posted comment is the one from above, in which I suggested that the DT seems to have lost the plot when it comes to the way it covers the left-wing loons (with nary a bit of skepticism or judgementalism), compared to what it has to say about those on the right.

I am still not quite ready to give up on the newspaper of my life and my childhood. My family always read, and held onto the Daily Telegraph, particularly my mother's love of the cryptic crossword (and the Sunday crossword--Dad would cheat, and others in the family pretended not to notice), and we perused it daily (after the servants had ironed it, of course). I love the daily puzzles. I abhor the idiot "royal correspondents" and their regular leftist nitwittery. And the hunt for the regular panic du jour? Well, here's what I sent to my sister this morning (my own captions on a widely published meme).

Honestly, Daily Telegraph, if it's not enough that I'm somewhat ashamed of you, perhaps you should be ashamed of yourself. Because this is what you've become:

God help the UK.