The most important thing now is that the Telegraph should be sold soon

So the Barclay brothers’ bid for Conrad Black’s controlling share in Hollinger International has been vetoed by an American judge. We are back to square one. A lot of time has been wasted. Meanwhile the patient itself — i.e., the Daily Telegraph — is ailing. Mercifully its journalists have called off a strike, though they remain sunk in gloom. But the paper is losing sales (though not on a Saturday) as some readers defect to the tabloid Times or the tabloid Independent. The Telegraph’s management has its own tabloid plans, and a budget of £15 million to launch the thing, but dares not push the button until it becomes clear who the new owner will be.

The thought that the sale of the newspaper might take several more months is not a happy one. (By the way, in writing about the Daily Telegraph I should declare an interest, since the upmarket newspaper I am planning with colleagues might be accounted a potential competitor. In fact I have inexhaustible affection for the Telegraph.) It so happens that Nick Shott, who is handling the sale of the paper on behalf of Lazard bank, is a former Telegraph senior executive. Stephen Carter, the head of Ofcom, the regulatory body which will assess the suitability of bidders, dealt with the Telegraph’s account when he was an advertising executive. If either of them has any residual affection for the newspaper, they will realise how important it is that there should be a speedy conclusion to this process.

Not that I think that any of the suitors has a miracle cure for the Daily Telegraph. There is no such cure. If a newspaper has gradually been losing readers for 25 years, it is not possible to turn it around in an instant. Possibly the decline cannot be reversed but only stabilised and managed.