In Britain, unlike in the United States, television tends to be a dignified affair, while print is berserk and shouty.
.. The Mail presents itself as the defender of traditional British values, the voice of an overlooked majority whose opinions inconvenience the agendas of metropolitan élites. To its detractors, it is the Hate Mail, goading the worst curtain-twitching instincts of an island nation, or the Daily Fail, fuelling paranoia about everything from immigration to skin conditions.
.. With the launch of the Mail, Harmsworth became a political force. During the Boer War, he used the paper to cheer on the imperialist project of Cecil Rhodes. Soon, the Mail’s circulation had risen above a million, making it the largest in the world.
.. Occasionally, Dacre, with Harmsworthian vim, will fixate on a subject. In 2008, it was plastic bags, which he came to loathe after seeing one stuck in a tree while he was driving in the countryside. Mail employees were surprised to see the paper, which had for years dismissed global warming as a scam, taking up an environmental cause, but soon it had launched a campaign to “Banish the Bags.”