The Spectator’s Notes | 19 January 2008

The news that the circulation of the Sun sank below three million in December, its lowest since the early Seventies, is a landmark. The moment that the Sun’s circulation overtook that of the Mirror, in May 1978, revealed a big shift in the political and social history of this country. No longer were the aspirations of the working class linked umbilically to the Labour movement, as, since 1945, they had appeared to be. In a conversation I once had with Rupert Murdoch, who has owned the Sun since 1969, he explained the trend. The Sun rose, he said, because, with post-war recovery, working people wanted more freedom and more fun. They owned cars, they could buy much more home entertainment and foreign holidays; they wanted the chance to buy their council houses. The Sun offered them emancipation, while the Mirror offered them a culture of resentment and collectivism. There is a lot of truth in this analysis. Politically, Margaret Thatcher was the beneficiary, and, ever since, party leaders have been at pains to have the Sun on side. The paper — though in reality often doing little more than working out who is winning and then backing him — has wished to assert its kingmaking power. Why the change? Not because another paper is overtaking the Sun. The Mirror now has less than half the sale of the Sun, even in its reduced state. The Daily Mail’s circulation is falling too, though less than that of the other tabloids. It is not even because of a drop in editorial quality, although the Sun is certainly much less exciting than it was in the glory days of Kelvin Mackenzie.

I think it is more to do with Murdoch’s point about emancipation. The popular papers have not really adjusted to the aspirations of the second generation of mass ownership.