Political journalist Andrew Neil has resigned as the chairman of The Spectator after 20 years at the helm.
Neil said he resigns with “great sadness” after the “immense privilege” of chairing the world’s oldest current affairs magazine.
Financier and GB News investor Sir Paul Marshall becomes the 196-year-old magazine’s 14th proprietor.
Neil wrote on X: “During [the past 20 years] we have transformed the oldest magazine in the world, established in the age of the quill pen, into one of the most successful publications of the digital age, growing revenues rapidly across all digital platforms while still maintaining a very healthy print circulation.”
He said he was “proud” of the people behind the magazine, which “has never been more profitable, its reach never wider, at home and abroad”.
Neil added that his proudest recollection of his time in charge is that he did “not preside over a single compulsory redundancy in 20 years”, during an era of cost-cutting in the legacy print media.
Explaining the “purgatory” of the last 16 months – after the Barclay family put the magazine up for sale – Neil said: “Suddenly and without warning we were placed in receivership because our then proprietors had used us as collateral for massive debts unrelated to us (without ever telling us). They then failed to pay these debts.”
The Spectator and the Telegraph were put up for sale in June 2023 following a financial dispute involving Lloyds Bank and the Barclay family, when the outlets’ holding companies went into liquidation.
Neil threatened to quit when a company linked to the United Arab Emirates attempted to buy Telegraph Media Group Limited (TMG), saying: “You cannot have a major mainstream newspaper group owned by an undemocratic government or dictatorship where no one has a vote.” Editor Fraser Nelson also criticised the move.
RedBird IMI, an Abu Dhabi and American-backed entity, paid £600m last year for TMG before their attempt to take over ownership was thwarted by the government and a change in ownership law.
With the Spectator now sold for £100m to Sir Paul Marshall, the Telegraph will need to be sold for £500m if they wish to recoup the money.
“It is a tribute to your professionalism and dedication that, throughout these troubled times, you never missed a beat,” Neil’s statement continued.
“You continued to publish in print and online as normal. No reader could ever have guessed the internal turmoil we were going through — at one stage there were more external advisers crawling over us than we had employees — because you never deviated from our high standards.”