The mass-market tabloids

Part of An introduction to newspapers in the UK

The two most-popular newspapers are The Sun and The Daily Mirror. Bitter rivals, the papers traditionally hold very differing political views - The Sun being Conservative (right-wing) since the early 1970s, while The Mirror being Labour (left-wing).

The Sun veered towards Tony Blair's Labour party six weeks before his victory in 1997, and supported Labour in subsequent general elections in 2001 and 2005. In 2010, it again supported the Conservative party, vigorously denouncing the Liberal Democrats. The coalition government that resulted from the 2010 elections has been tricky for the newspaper; some early reports of the new government ignored LibDem ministers in features.

With the mass-market tabloids, just as in other areas of life, sex sells. The Sun is home of the famous Page Three girl - an idea used by The Mirror for a while, but dumped in the 1980s. The Daily Star, a sister paper for the Daily Express (originally launched to use spare capacity in the Express printing presses), gives its readers regular 'StarBirds' throughout its pages and the advertising catch-phrase 'Oooh Ahhh Daily Star'. A relative newcomer, the Manchester-based Daily Sport is closely linked with the pornography industry, and consists mainly of a diet of fanciful stories, any stories or trials connected to sex, and a diet of nude women on almost every page, although no pubic hair is shown. Advertising seems to consist of sex products and services.