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Smashed avocadoGBGBGBGB SDPGBYour browser does not support the element. is not on the breakfast menu at the Old Queen Street Cafe, a stone’s throw from Parliament. Instead the home-sourced offerings include Welsh rarebit, black pudding and, for lunch, smoked-eel fish fingers with pickled onion. The decor—“100% my taste”, says Sir Paul Marshall, the owner—is as patriotic as the food. Photos depict classic British scenes: swimmers in the Thames, a brass band. The floorboards, salvaged from the War Office, were trod by .If Brexit were a bistro, this might be it. The building is home to UnHerd, a “heterodox” news site that Sir Paul founded in 2017. A few doors away is the a right-leaning weekly he bought in September; he has a big stake in , a rowdy right-wing broadcaster. But his interests are wider than journalism: among Britain’s most influential people, he is one of the least understood. Sparky and thoughtful, in a rare interview he deplores the trajectory of the country he cherishes.The money comes from Marshall Wace, a hedge fund that Sir Paul, now 65, co-founded in 1997. Based in Chelsea, the firm now handles more than $69bn in assets. Lots of hedgies are contrarians, he says, since to prosper they must “question every aspect of consensus”. Even so, observes an industry insider of Sir Paul’s other pursuits, “he’s more ‘out there’ than most British hedge-fund managers.”“‘I am too easily romanced by new stories,” Sir Paul confessed in “10½ Lessons from Experience, an investment memoir. Analysts suspect that applies to his media holdings. His interest in the ongoing sale of the newspapers has cooled, but he paid a whopping £100m ($130m) for the (plus , an art monthly), installing , a veteran Conservative and “close friend”, as editor. He hopes the paucity of trusted, right-leaning generalist outlets in America is an opening for the magazine. As for lossmaking News, he is confident it will turn a profit.These, however, are not pure investments, but “business with a purpose”. What purpose? The image of the media mogul as a shady powerbroker, quips a British executive, is precisely what draws plutocrats to the few resilient print titles—which offer a return in access and status if not in cash. Friends of Sir Paul, and the man himself, deny that he is buying influence. He cites a commitment to intellectual plurality, contending, as a rationale for News, that the leftist bias in broadcasting meant there was “absolutely nothing representing 55% of the population”.And Sir Paul venerates free speech, a bedrock right which he believes is “under assault”. He points to a “flagrant example” in his own family. His son Winston, formerly a banjo-player in the band Mumford & Sons, was hounded online for congratulating the author of a provocative book.Still, most people accept that some views are too toxic for public airing. Ofcom, a regulator, says News has crossed that border, repeatedly breaching its rules. Sir Paul abjures all forms of abuse, yet he, too, has teetered on the line: earlier this year it emerged he had liked tweets which predicted “civil war” with “fake refugee invaders” in Europe and called for “mass deportations”. He is “embarrassed” by these posts, which, he says, do not represent his views: “I was just trying to make people aware that these sorts of things are out there.” But he is worried that immigration, if sustained at current levels, will cause increased social tension and sectarianism.A ratchet effect is visible in some free-speech champions, who progress from decrying censorship, to giving platforms to controversial ideas, to espousing them. Think of . Whether or not that applies to Sir Paul, he seems to have come a long way since standing for Parliament in 1987 for the , an antecedent of the , to whom he once donated. He broke with the party over Brexit, which he backed. (It is “going badly”, he concedes: to seize its opportunities, Britain must cut corporate taxes and deregulate.)Many people drift to the right with age. In Sir Paul’s case, there are other explanations. In the Lib Dems, maintains one party grandee, he was always a misfit who “seemed pretty right-wing”. Sir Paul reckons his views have been “remarkably stable”, hewing to the classical liberal tradition. Modern liberalism has mutated into “extreme individualism”, he laments, and is beset by “cultural Marxism” and post-modern relativism. Liberals have focused on rights and neglected responsibilities: “There’s no great philosopher of responsibility, until probably Jordan Peterson.”Mr Peterson, a polarising Canadian academic, is involved in another of Sir Paul’s new ventures, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, a talking-shop which, among other goals, aims to restore “the foundations of our civilisation”. If that sounds grandiose, much of Sir Paul’s philanthropy has been more practical. He bankrolled the Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics and co-founded Absolute Return for Kids, a charity that runs 39 well-regarded schools in England.“Every human soul is sacred,” he says on the alliance’s website. That sentence—which the average News tub-thumper is unlikely to utter—is a clue to his faith. It is “private and personal”, but he has put his wallet where his conscience is, supporting his church, Holy Trinity Brompton, and related efforts to train clergy and “plant” new congregations. In the mild-mannered Church of England these outfits, too, have caused ructions. Their glitzy style of worship entices worshippers from older churches, notes one priest. But the underlying theology is conservative.Money, politics, philanthropy, happy-clappy religion: Sir Paul’s portfolio is more typical of American high-rollers than British ones. He raises an eyebrow at that thought, calling himself an admirer of America’s economy but “culturally European”. And there is a big difference between him and American Christians, some of whom mobilise as a bloc. “Christ wasn’t interested in politics,” he argues. “Faith and politics mix very badly.”All the same, as he talks bleakly about society’s philosophical problems, the plight of free speech, liberalism’s malaise, Britain’s misfiring economy and excessive immigration, he clearly thinks something must be done. A believer in the power of individuals in history, he says “it would only need one great leader” to reverse the decline. He won’t be throwing his hat into the ring. “My time is past,” he scoffs. Hardly.
