•Fill in our listener survey for a chance to win an exclusive Origin Story t-shirt.

Welcome to part two of the story of the Daily Mail. We pick things up with the disastrous reign of Esmond Harmsworth and his wife Ann, aka “the Monster”. The paper loses direction, readers and money until, in 1971, Esmond’s eccentric son Vere proves his doubters wrong by relaunching the Mail as a tabloid under editor David English. English is young, brilliant and unpredictable: a charming bully with a flexible relationship to the truth. He perfects the winning formula of gravitas, fun and permanent outrage while getting so close to Margaret Thatcher that the Mail effectively becomes an arm of the Conservative campaign machine.

Enter Paul Dacre in 1992 — the Mail’s most long-lasting and divisive editor. Socially awkward and writhing with prejudice, he sees himself as the vessel for the aspirations and phobias of the middle classes — the voice of the ordinary man and woman despite his giant salary, multiple homes and Etonian sons. For 26 years, he terrorises staff, persecutes minorities, intimidates politicians and rails against institutions like the EU and the BBC. (Be warned: this episode contains a record number of beeped obscenities.) We close by talking about Dacre’s toxic legacy and how his peculiar ideas about Britain continue to shape the direction of the country even under his successors. But the Mail’s circulation is plummeting and even its cursed website has lost momentum. Almost 130 years after Alfred Harmsworth founded it, why does it remain the most venomously powerful newspaper in Britain?

How did the Mail reverse its decline and become what it is today? Do the editors or the readers decide its preoccupations? How did it influence both James Bond and the Beatles? What do Paul Dacre’s shoes tell us about this self-proclaimed voice of the people? And is the Mail really as plugged in as it thinks it is? Join us for the dramatic story of the newspaper that reveals Britain’s dark heart.

• Get the Origin Story books on Fascism, Centrism and Conspiracy Theory 

Reading list

Books

Adrian Addison – Mail Men: The Unauthorized Story of the Daily Mail, the Paper That Divided and Conquered Britain (2017)

Richard Bourne – Lords of Fleet Street: The Harmsworth Dynasty (1990)

William E Carson – Northcliffe: Britain’s Man of Power (1918)

Tom Clarke – My Northcliffe Diary (1931)

James Curran and Jean Seaton - Power Without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain (1998)

Nick Davies – Flat Earth News (2008)

Stephen Dorril – Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism (2006)

Roy Greenslade – Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits from Propaganda (2003)

Reginald Pound and Geoffrey Harmsworth – Northcliffe (1960)

Martin Pugh – ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’: Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the Wars (2005)

... Full reading list can be found on Patreon

Journalism

Paul Dacre on Desert Island Discs (2004)

Paul Dacre – Cudlipp Lecture (2007)

Paul Dacre – Speech to the Society of Editors (2008)

Lauren Collins – ‘The Mail Supremacy’, New Yorker (2012)

... Full reading list can be found on Patreon

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices