Bush Telegraph signals Mittal's name

Lakshmi Mittal has been sounded out about whether he would like to buy The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph from their current owners, the Barclay brothers, Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, according to the satirical magazine, Private Eye.

It reports that the accounting firm Deloitte "is crawling all over the business to assess its value" but that advisers are warning the Barclay brothers that they "are highly unlikely to get back the £665m they paid for the titles" in 2004.

Private Eye says in its latest issue: "The twins have been told their best hope is a Russian oligarch keen to get his millions out of Putin's Russia or an Indian tycoon keen to join London high society. Discreet soundings have been taken with Lakshmi Mittal, but he shows little enthusiasm."

My guess is that Mittal is not interested in newspapers, even if he were not preoccupied with the crisis in the steel industry. But assuming Private Eye is right in claiming the Barclays are considering the sale of the Telegraph titles, it is not a bad idea for an Indian to make his move.

Buying the Telegraph would add enormously to Mittal's power and prestige. If he swapped passports, he would probably be given a knighthood or even a peerage.

Some 15 years ago, the Hindujas did seriously consider buying Express newspapers but were outflanked by Richard Desmond.

In my time, the titles were owned by Lord Hartwell, an English aristocrat of the Jeeves and Wooster school who loved newspapers but was not especially business minded. Eventually he was forced to sell to the Canadian Conrad (later Lord) Black, who ended up in prison but in my opinion was not a bad proprietor.

The Daily Telegraph 's certified daily circulation in October was 4,74,981 - it was never under 1m in my time and even touched 1.5m. Circulation of The Times is 3,94,240 copies, including "bulk sales" of 23,828 copies distributed free (but counted as part of the total circulation).

What is remarkable is that while the Daily Mail sold 14,37,541 copies a day last month, it attracted 1,32,46,053 online visitors a day, making it the most popular online paper in the world.

Intolerance stir

There is a spirit of intolerance in Britain, too. Last week students at Brunel University got up just as a "controversial" columnist Katie Hopkins started to speak, turned their backs on her and then trooped out en masse.

The problem is that Hopkins, who first came to prominence by appearing on a TV reality show called The Apprentice, writes a Mail online column dedicated to being as intolerant as possible to vulnerable people.

The debate, which posed the question, "Does the welfare state have a place in 2015?", was the first in a series to celebrate Brunel University's 50th anniversary year.

Ali Milani, president of the Union of Brunel Students, defended the walkout: "Katie Hopkins has expressed some overtly controversial views that our students find offensive. We have a very diverse campus, we expressed our concerns that she has no academic credibility and contributes nothing to the debate."

Hopkins is "the self-confessed 'biggest bitch in Britain'". Newspapers now list her most intolerant quotes like battle honours, thereby encouraging her to provide more of the same.

Many argue that more should be done to help migrants and refugees and prevent children from drowning but not Hopkins: "What we need are gunships sending these boats back to their own country... Make no mistake, these migrants are like cockroaches."

And this is Hopkins on the student protest at Brunel University: "The number of innocuous things students take offence at has spread faster than genital warts at Freshers week... Looking forward to speaking at Cambridge Union next week."

Book watch

Here is the shortlist, announced last week at the London School of Economics in London, for Surina Narula's $50,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016: Akhil Sharma: Family Life (Faber & Faber, UK); Anuradha Roy: Sleeping on Jupiter (Hachette, India); K.R. Meera: Hang Woman (Translated by J. Devika; Penguin, India); Mirza Waheed: The Book of Gold Leaves (Viking/Penguin India); Neel Mukherjee: The Lives of Others (Vintage/Penguin Random House, UK); and Raj Kamal Jha: She Will Build Him A City (Bloomsbury, India).

The winner will be announced at the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka on January 16, 2016.

Sir Mark Tully, chairman of the judging panel, said the novels "reflect the variety and vigour of South Asian fiction writing and writing about South Asia. I am particularly glad that a translation from a South Asian language into English is included in the shortlist."

I hope there is soon a prize for journalists for faithfully reporting long and shortlists.

Life's charms

Alan Kingsbury, a well-known English artist, recently displayed 12 large canvases at Panter & Hall, an art gallery in Pall Mall.

I am glad I popped in because Kingsbury, who lives in the west country, had copied some of his favourite works in the Wallace Collection, a London museum with "unsurpassed displays of French 18th-century and other paintings, furniture and porcelain and a world class armoury".

Kingsbury makes copies of the original but invariably changes the background. He has set The Laughing Cavalier, the famous painting by Dutch master Frans Hals, in his own drawing room, for example.

That is a bit like painting the Mona Lisa hung in a passage way in Belgachia Metro.

Kingsbury's works need "to be viewed from afar for optimum effect" - that is, the large canvases, which are full of colour, are best hung in large residences.

There is one special point about Kingsbury - he contemplates whatever he is painting at great length "but then I finish the painting in one day".

I saw the novelist Jeffrey Archer dash in and out and was told he had bought something. Clearly (writing about) crime does pay.

Fare's fair

Mike Harvey, a taxi driver in Wales, has taken up an unusual hobby. Instead of asking his passengers for the fare at the end of a journey, he makes a polite request: "Do you mind if I take your photograph?"

He has quite a collection now of passengers identified only by the fares they have paid - for example, "£7.16".

He says his photographs, which are "an honest portrayal of a community", should be viewed as a whole.

Harvey's next stop is Mumbai where he will repeat his project.

Tittle tattle

It's time to say goodbye to the former foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai, who has completed a two-year stint as Indian high commissioner in London and deserves a medal for surviving visits by both Mamata Banerjee and Narendra Modi.

Some guests who came to Bombay Brasserie for the Indian Journalists Association's farewell dinner for Mathai last week did so after attending a lecture on India's new politics at King's College London by journalist Swapan Dasgupta.

His name had done the rounds, along with that of M.J. Akbar, as possible replacements for Mathai when Modi first became Prime Minister. But even Modi's enemies acknowledge the PM has not messed with diplomatic appointments.

"Not one," emphasised someone in the know.

Mathai is being succeeded by seasoned diplomat and author Navtej Sarna.