An interesting split is developing in the British right-wing press. The Times and the Telegraph are in favour of war, of course. The Telegraph is being thoroughly consistent. It will always argue for the world to be run by a benevolent American empire. The Times has no such larger policy but it is in favour of this particular war. The rest of the Murdoch press just likes all wars, if Our Lads are involved in them. But the Mail, on Wednesday, had a full-length leader coming out against the war.
Let’s be precise. It actually came out against a war without good evidence that Saddam Hussein was a threat to world peace and British interests, and that had actively backed Al-Qaeda. But there is no such evidence and there wont’ be. The Mail’s is actually the position of most the peacemongers. I don’t think war is always an illegitimate instrument of policy. I know that it is sometimes the only way to prevent worse evils. It’s just this war we doubt.
So the phalanx of the right-wing press has splintered. The fracture line is what interests me. It is the American-owned papers that are howling for war, and the British-owned Mail that is opposed on the grounds of British national interest.
This is going to make life difficult for the Conservative party, for the divisions within the papers represent deep divisions within the British right, too. The Conservative Party has nearly destroyed itself over Europe already. Can it be that this war will be the place where it tears its remaing half into quarters over the USA?