ABSTRACT
Throughout the inter-war years, Labour suffered a serious disadvantage in newspaper representation from a new, stridently independent and largely right-wing force in British politics, the popular press. Yet the same period also saw the beginnings of a mass-readership centre-left press. It was not, however, until the Second World War that the most important popular paper in this mould, the Daily Mirror, swung to the left. By the 1945 general election, Labour gained better treatment than ever before from a popular press as partisan as in the inter-war period, but which was now fairly evenly divided in its loyalties – a pattern which continued throughout the lifetime of the Attlee governments. Reflecting these trends, this chapter begins by focusing briefly on the political stance of the popular press during the inter-war period before examining in more detail the changing content, ownership and impact of coverage leading up to the 1945 election. It then concludes with a brief examination of the response of the popular press to the first Labour governments between 1945-1951.
