ABSTRACT
As any European visitor to London can testify, Britain has a press which combines some good quality, even worldclass newspapers, with some of the worst in Europe. Everyone also agrees about the vigour of the British press market. Relations between the British State and the press are like an intricate and complex dance in which the audience has at the most only a dim understanding of the 'rules' observed by the dancers and the motives of their performance. Large sections of the British press have had an adversarial relationship to recent UK governments. Both Labour and Conservative Governments found a large information machine tremendously useful, not only in the day-to-day business of putting the official line across but in pursuing the totally mundane requirements of a medium-size European power – ensuring people paid their taxes on time, got their children inoculated and took taxis home from the pub.
