On 16 March 1931, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin addressed his supporters in the Queen’s Hall, London. The Daily Mail and Daily Express, owned by Lords Rothermere and Beaverbrook respectively, had been hounding him and he resolved to take them on. These are words for which he is perhaps best remembered on that day:
“What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”
It is said that this move was author – and Baldwin’s first cousin – Rudyard Kipling’s idea. Kipling had worked out Beaverbrook and knew he was drunk on power. Baldwin’s counterattack took the wind out of the sails of these two rabble-rousing publications.
Sir Keir Starmer finds himself in a similar position today. It seems the persecution started with ‘Currygate’. Having given Johnson a pretty easy time over ‘Partygate’, the right-wing media attempted to claim that Starmer’s actions were similar, and they failed. No apology was forthcoming, and when Labour came to power in 2024, the same media continued to spout bile.
On right-wing populism
Let us remember how the Mail hailed Trump’s November 2024 re-election:
“He’s been shot, sued, put on trial, written off, and endlessly branded a fascist. Now Donald Trump has defied his critics to crush his opponents once more.”
From this, one could infer glee, schadenfreude, and perhaps the notion that Trump is an innocent victim.
Mail columnist, Boris Johnson, declared: “Intergalactic Lefty bedwetters like Rory Stewart are so deranged by hatred of Trump they’re blind to the fact that, from Venezuela to Iran, he’s on the side of the good guys – and making the world a safer place”.
Really?
In 2025, Claudia Harmsworth, the wife of the Mail’s current proprietor donated £50 000 to Reform. Reform’s founder, former co-owner, and now leader, Nigel Farage, greeted Trump’s re-election as follows:
“Donald Trump, standing on a platform many of whose policies were not dissimilar to what we put to the British people in that contract last July, has won this incredible victory and got off to the most amazing start.”
He also asserted: “I hope and believe that many things that will happen in America will serve as an inspiration to us.”
On Islam
“Our soppy Christian Church is no match for the power of Islam in Britain”, proclaims Peter Hitchens in the Mail (28 March 2026).
Yet what is the power of the almost 7% of British citizens who are Muslim? How does their might manifest itself? Does the Mail explain that?
I suspect truth is that British Muslims want to be left alone to work and bring up their families and practice their religion in peace. The idea that they harbour the desire to take over the country and impose Shariah law on all of us, as the Mail would appear to imply, is laughable.
Or might it be that the Mail is angry because the Church of England is no longer the deeply conservative-all male institution it was in the good old days. Not for one moment does the Mail reflect on what Christ’s message was. Parables like the Good Samaritan and the Feeding of the Five Thousand, with their themes of compassion and aiding the needy, are conveniently forgotten, if they were ever remembered.
On geopolitics
It is one thing to repeat Trump’s criticism of the Western alliance’s lack of military preparation (though the question must be asked, did the right-wing media ever criticize the Tories for neglecting our military? No, they were too busy obsessing about Brexit and immigration).
Nonetheless, do we not need allies? According to the Mail, we do not:
“Starmer must give up licking Trump’s boots AND avoid the EU’s chilly embrace. There’s only one way to stop us being a laughingstock… REARM NOW.”
But surely this is no time for isolationism. What is wrong with re-establishing ties with the EU? What is chilly about its embrace? Has Brexit been such a success?
Yet according to columnist Stephen Glover, we must tell Trump where to go and at the same time avoid closer links with the dastardly EU. Glover’s solution is mind-bogglingly simple: we must rearm (just like that) and go it alone. Doesn’t this recall the magical thinking of Brexit? We cannot go it alone; never could. And we cannot count on the USA.
And as for licking Trump’s boots, don’t Messrs Johnson and Farage spring to mind? Starmer may have been over-cautious at times but were I awarding Private Eye’s famous Arselickhan prize (all the more apt since it was originally handed out for sucking up to the late Shah of Persia), I’d pin it on the chests of the above-mentioned two.
Recently, Farage backed the Iran war and then, inevitably, was forced to U-turn. Has the Mail covered this in full, with all the implications? I think we know the answer to this question, and it’s the same as to the question, did the Mail publish a front-page retraction having reported, unchallenged, Reform’s allegations of vote rigging on the front page?
One may reasonably wonder whether Nigel Farage still counts as a chum a man who posted on Truth Social: “A whole civilization will die…” In this particular message, it seems, Trump has gone too far, even for Farage.
Take it on
The British right continues to fantasise about what sort of a country we really are, and until Labour resolves to take it on we really haven’t got a chance. Leveson II would be a small step towards that.
In the end, Starmer must tackle the right-wing media and all they stand for. And he must stop appeasing the bigotry they feed with his damaging policies on Europe and immigration. I’d suggest he studies Stanley Baldwin’s response to the rabble-rousing media back in the day. And soon.
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