"But the more troubling effects are on the nature and quality of opposition. Serious, effective opposition requires a sustained critique of government built around a plausible and coherent set of principles. This is not something that newspapers tend to be much good at. However seriously they like to take themselves intellectually, they are inherently reactive and opportunistic. The Daily Mail is brilliantly successful at setting a news agenda; less so at setting the political agenda. That was illustrated at the last election, when the then Conservative Party leader, William Hague, based his programme largely on the preoccupations and prejudices of the Daily Mail's brilliant but rather weird editor, Paul Dacre, and suffered a humiliating defeat. Mr Hague's mistake was to think he could conduct opposition politics as if he was editing a tabloid newspaper."
One can go further. William Hague's campaign was based on Paul Dacre's world view, which is a world view suitable to fighting an East End seat in the 1920s. In fact the Daily Mail's political views are essentially based on a view of the public as being in some 1920s East End. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) it's making the paper dull, as The Economist notes:
"The Daily Mail, a paper which was once remarkable for its flair, has become startlingly boring, with page after page devoted to mad Cherie and her evil entourage. That sort of thing may help explain why Britain's most successful newspaper of the past two decades is now losing readers."
posted by Matthew @ 12/13/2002 10:25:00 AM
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