ABSTRACT
Here Deacon offers a spoof account of a House of Commons debate in the manner of The Times. The paper, founded in 1785 as the Daily Universal Register and renamed The Times in 1788, carried regular and detailed reports of Parliamentary proceedings. The Times, which prided itself as offering a voice for public opinion, was then politically independent, though its support for causes associated with Whigs and Radicals, notably its strong support for Queen Caroline in 1820 and for the constitutional Spanish government in 1823, led to acerbic relations with pro-governmental organs such as the John Bull (see ‘A Letter to the Editor of Warreniana’ below).
