“An Organ of Uplift?”

This article examines the role the popular daily press played both in integrating voters into Britain’s new mass democracy after 1918, and in redefining the nature of political debate. It will start by suggesting that “depoliticisation” is not the most useful model for understanding interwar popular journalism. The article will then look briefly at the ways in which the popular press addressed the people most poorly integrated into British political culture, namely the new female voters and the non-unionised working class. It will highlight the extent to which the popular press emphasised the importance of citizenship and encouraged involvement in the political process. While not seeking to disguise the limitations of this material, it will argue that the popular press’s political content was more varied and unpredictable than historians often assume.