The Bloody Circus The Daily Herald and the Left

This text investigates why the Left has failed to develop a lasting popular journalism in Britain, when at one point, The Daily Herald - jointly owned by the Labour party and the TUC - was outselling any other newspaper in the world with the exception of Pravda. The Herald is viewed as the leading example of the Left's attempts to redress the imbalance of rightwing political bias in the press in the UK. From its role in 1912 as an independently owned radical paper aimed at political activists, to its transition into commercial publishing and its subsequent demise in 1964, the author examines the paper's content and background using source material in the Labour Party and TUC archives. The story of the paper's rise and fall sheds light on the wider history of the popular press and its often problematic relationship with British society and politics.