The Fourth Estate

After Allan Walker had taken his degree, his first job application was to Armstrong Communications. The chairman immediately took him onto his personal staff so he could advise him on how he should go about extending his political influence. Walker’s first suggestion was for him to take over the ailing university magazine Isis, which was, as usual, in financial trouble. For a small investment Armstrong became a hero of the university left, and shamelessly used the magazine to promote his own cause. His face appeared on the cover at least once a term, but as the magazine’s editors only ever lasted for a year, and doubted if they would find another source of income, none of them objected.

When Harold Wilson became leader of the Labor Party, Armstrong began to make public statements in his support; cynics suggested it was only because the Tories would have nothing to do with him. He never failed to let visiting front-bench Labor spokesmen know that he was happy to bear any losses on Isis, as long as it could in some way encourage the next generation of Oxford students to support the Labor Party. Some politicians found this approach fairly crude. But Armstrong began to believe that if the Labor Party were to form the next government, he would be able to use his influence and wealth to fulfill his new dream—to be the proprietor of a national newspaper.

In fact, he began to wonder just who would be able to stop him.

20.

The Times

16 October 1964

KHRUSHCHEV GIVES UP—“OLD AND III.” BREZHNEV AND KOSYGIN TO RULE RUSSIA

Keith Townsend unfastened his seatbelt a few minutes after the Comet took off, flicked open his briefcase and removed a bundle of papers. He glanced across at Kate, who was already engrossed in the latest novel by Patrick White.

He began to check through the file on the West Riding Group. Was this his best chance yet of securing a foothold in Britain? After all, his first purchase in Sydney had been a small group of papers, which in time had made it possible for him to buy the Sydney Chronicle. He was convinced that once he controlled a regional newspaper group in Britain, he would be in a far stronger position to make a takeover bid for a national paper.

Harry Shuttleworth, he read, was the man who had founded the group at the turn of the century. He had first published an evening paper in Huddersfield as an adjunct to his highly successful textile mill. Townsend recognized the pattern of a local paper being controlled by the biggest employer in the area—that was how he had ended up with a hotel and two coalmines. Each time Shuttleworth opened a factory in a new town, a newspaper would follow a couple of years later. By the time he retired, he had four mills and four newspapers in the West Riding.

Shuttleworth’s eldest son, Frank, took over the firm when he returned from the First World War, and although his primary interest remained in textiles, he …

“Would you like a drink, sir?”

Townsend nodded. “A whiskey and a little water please.”

… he also added local papers to the three factories he built in Doncaster, Bradford and Leeds. At various times these had attracted friendly approaches from Beaverbrook, Northcliffe and Rothermere. Frank had apparently given all three of them the oft-quoted reply: “There’s nowt here for thee, lad.”

But it seemed that the third generation of Shuttleworths were not of the same mettle. A combination of cheap imported textiles from India and an only son who had always wanted to be a botanist meant that though Frank died leaving eight mills, seven dailies, five weeklies and a county magazine, the profits of his company began falling within days of his coffin being lowered into the ground. The mills finally went into liquidation in the late 1940s, and since then the newspaper group had barely broken even. It seemed now to be surviving only on the loyalty of its readers, but the latest figures showed that even that couldn’t be sustained much longer.

Townsend looked up as a table was fitted into his armrest and a small linen cloth placed over it. When the stewardess did the same for Kate she put down Riders in the Chariot but remained silent, not wanting to interrupt her boss’s concentration.

“I’d like you to read this,” he said, passing her the first few pages of the report. “Then you’ll understand why I’m making this trip to England.”

Townsend opened a second file, prepared by Henry Wolstenholme, a contemporary of his at Oxford and now a solicitor in Leeds. He could remember very little about Wolstenholme, except that after a few drinks in the buttery he became unusually loquacious. He would not have been Townsend’s first choice to do business with, but as his firm had represented the West Riding Group since its foundation, there wasn’t an alternative. It had

been Wolstenholme who had first alerted him to the group’s potential: he had written to him in Sydney suggesting that although WRG was not on the market—certainly its current chairman would deny it should he be approached—he knew that if John Shuttleworth were ever to consider a sale, he would want the purchaser to come from as far away from Yorkshire as possible. Townsend smiled as a bowl of turtle soup was placed in front of him. As the proprietor of the Hobart Mail, he had to be the best-qualified candidate in the world.

Once Townsend had written expressing interest, Wolstenholme had suggested that they meet to discuss terms. Townsend’s first stipulation was that he needed to see the group’s presses. “Not a hope,” came back the immediate reply. “Shuttleworth doesn’t want to be the subject of his own front pages until the deal is closed.” Townsend accepted that no negotiations through a third party were ever easy, but with this one he was going to have to rely on Wolstenholme to answer even more questions than usual.

With a fork in one hand, and the next page in the other, he began to go over the figures Clive Jervis had prepared for him. Clive estimated that the company was worth about a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, but pointed out that having seen nothing except the balance sheet, he was in no position to commit himself—clearly he wanted a get-out clause in case anything went wrong at a later stage, thought Townsend.

“It’s more exciting than Riders in the Chariot,” Kate said after she had put down the first file. “But what part am I expected to play?”

“That will depend on the ending,” replied Keith. “If I pull this one off, I’ll need articles in all my Australian papers, and I’ll want a separate piece—slightly less gushing—for Reuters and the Press Association. The important thing is to alert publishers all over the world to the fact that I’m now a serious player outside Australia.”

“How well do you know Wolstenholme?” Kate asked. “It seems to me that you’re going to have to rely a lot on his judgment.”

“Not that well,” admitted Keith. “He was a couple of years ahead of me at Worcester, and was considered a bit of a hearty.”

“A hearty?” repeated Kate, looking puzzled.

“During Michaelmas he spent most of his time with the college rugby team, and the other two terms standing on the riverbank urging on the college boat. I think he was chosen to coach them because he had a voice that could be heard on the other side of the Thames, and enjoyed the odd pint of ale with the crew, even after they’d sunk. But that was ten years ago; for all I know he’s settled down and become a dour Yorkshire solicitor, with a wife and several children.”

“Do you have any idea how much the West Riding Group is really worth?”

“No, but I can always make an offer subject to seeing the six presses, and at the same time try to get a feel of how good the editors and journalists are. But in England the biggest problem is always the trades unions. If this group’s controlled by a closed shop, then I’m not interested, because however good the deal is, the unions could still bankrupt me within months.”

“And if it isn’t?” said Kate.