On 3rd September, 1939, the House of Commons passed the Emergency Powers Act. This enabled the British government to virtually do what it liked with the freedom and property of any citizen simply by issuing the appropriate regulation without reference to Parliament. Censorship was imposed on overseas mail, and telephone trunk lines, though the public did not know this, were tapped. By October, a National Register of all citizens had been completed. Everyone received a buff-coloured identity card with a personal number of six or seven digits. (4)

A few days after the passing of the Emergency Powers Act, a secret internal government was circulated. The unnamed official stated: "The people must feel that they are being told the truth. Distrust breeds fear much more than knowledge of reverses. The all-important thing for publicity to achieve is the conviction that the worst is known… the people should be told that this is a civilians' war, or a People's War, and therefore they are to be taken into the government's confidence as never before…. What is truth? We must adopt a pragmatic definition. It is what it is believed to be the truth. The government would be wise therefore to tell the truth and, if a sufficient emergency arises, to tell one big, thumping lie that will then be believed." (5)

Two days before the outbreak of war, the government established the Ministry of Information. The plans for the ministry had been drawn up by Rex Leeper, the head of the Foreign Office news department. Under this scheme the ministry would be responsible for distributing all information concerning the prosecution of the war and for propaganda at home and abroad. (6) John C. Davidson, the chairman of the Conservative Party, described the plans for wartime propaganda machinery as something "of which any totalitarian state would be proud". (7)

Only a week into the war the new ministry was made to look ridiculous when news leaked through the Paris media that a British Expeditionary Force was on French soil. At first the War Office confirmed the news to journalists. Then it changed its mind and called in the police to confiscate the first editions of the newspapers. This included raiding newspaper offices and stopping trains and pulling over cars driving out of London to stop newspapers reaching the public. When Francis Williams, editor of the Daily Herald, pointed out to the Ministry of Information, that the presence of British troops had been broadcast several times by French radio, and that its censorship policy was not working, its spokesman replied: "The newspapers might have published more details. You can't expect us to not to trust the newspapers." (8)

In the first four weeks of the war the staff of the Ministry of Information, grew from 12 to 999, of which only 43 were journalists. Newspapers complained about this attempt at censorship. The Daily Express said that soon Britain would need leaflet raids on itself to tell its own people how the war was going. Magor-General John Hay Beith, the War Office's director of public relations, took the unusual step of writing to The Times to explain why this policy had been developed and pointed out that the Germans were being so successful on the propaganda front. However, Beith promised improvements. "A large body of correspondents, including a fully representative American contingent... are now with the forces in France." (9)

A group of fifteen British and nine American journalists were allowed to travel with British troops to Europe. They were looked after by a group of Old Etonian, military officers, who were often drunk. This included the large landowner, Charles Tremayne, who was known to drink neat gin for breakfast and consumed three bottles of it every day. O. D. Gallagher, who worked for The Daily Mail later told Phillip Knightley: "The conducting officers were such astounding caricatures of British army regular officers and upper classes as to be scarcely credible. They were either drunk half the time or half drunk all the time." (10)

Just over 338,200 troops (of whom 150,200 were French) were brought out through Dunkirk, mainly between 26th May and 4th June, and crossed the Channel to Britain in naval ships and in a flotilla of small craft assembled for the occasion. The total casualties of the British Army in France was 68,111. In all, 338,226 men were brought to England from Dunkirk, of whom 139,097 were members of the French Army. Left behind in France were 2,472 guns, 20,000 motorcycles, and almost 65,000 other vehicles. Almost all of the 445 British tanks that had been sent to France with the BEF were abandoned. Six destroyers had been sunk and nineteen damaged. The RAF had also lost 474 aircraft. (11)

General William Ironside, chief of the Imperial General Staff, told Anthony Eden, "This is the end of the British Empire." Churchill appealed to the newspapers not to present it as a major defeat. The Daily Mirror described the operation as "Bloody Marvellous" and the Sunday Dispatch suggested that divine intervention had been responsible. It pointed out that Dunkirk had followed a nation-wide service of prayer and that during the evacuation "the English Channel, that notoriously rough stretch of water which has brought distress to so many holiday-makers in happier times, became as calm and smooth as a pond... and while the smooth sea was aiding our ships, a fog was shielding our troops from devastating attack by the enemy's air strength." (12)

The New York Times went along with this message: "So long as the English tongue survives, the word Dunkirk will be spoken with reverence. For in that harbour, in such a hell as never blazed on earth before, at the end of a last battle, the rags and blemishes that have hidden the soul of democracy fell away. There, beaten but unconquered, in shining splendor, she faced the enemy." (13)

Edward Murrow, of CBS, the radio station, was the only dissenting voice when he claimed that "there is a tendency to call the withdrawal a victory." (14) However, this was something only available to an American audience. Phillip Knightley, the author of The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker (1982), has pointed out that "it was not until the late 1950s and early 1960's - nearly twenty years after the event - that a fuller, truer picture of Dunkirk began to emerge." (15)

Soon after Winston Churchill became prime minister he appointed Lord Beaverbrook, the press baron, as Minister of Air Production. However, his other role was to control what the press had to say about the government. Some of Churchill's ministers, including Clement Attlee, who loathed Beaverbrook with a "rare intensity for such a calm man". However, it was an inspired choice and as Lieutenant General Ian Jacob pointed out: "Beaverbrook as minister of aircraft production is still Beaverbrook the press king." (16)

Duff Cooper became the new Minister of Information. Cooper had been one of the main figures in the downfall of Neville Chamberlain when he resigned from the government over appeasement. Churchill took a keen interest in what the newspapers said about him and Robert Barrington-Ward, the editor of The Times described him as having the press "rather on the brain". (17) Churchill would often get very upset with what appeared about him but was less interested in other issues. Cooper was upset by Churchill's lack of support and Michael Balfour, who worked in the Ministry of Information, quoted him as saying: "When I appealed for support from the PM, I seldom got it. He was not interested in the subject. He knew that propaganda was not going to win the war." (18)

People soon became aware that the government was keeping information from them. The Nazi government took advantage of this situation and William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) provided an alternative news source on the war. Joyce's broadcasts came from studios in Berlin and relayed over a network of German-controlled radio stations that included Hamburg, Bremen, Luxembourg, Hilversum, Calais, Oslo, and Zeesen. The German Büro Concordia organisation, which ran several black propaganda stations, many of which pretended to broadcast illegally from within Britain. At the height of his influence, in 1940, Joyce had an estimated six million regular and 18 million occasional listeners in the United Kingdom. (19)

These broadcasts encouraged the spreading of rumours that undermined the war effort. Early in the war a schoolmaster was jailed for advancing "defeatist" theories to his pupils. Attempts were made to stop the spreading of stories that would damage the war effort.. An Emergency Regulation in June 1940, made it an offence to circulate "any report or statement" about the war which was "likely to cause alarm or despondency". Fines up to fifty pounds could be imposed if you were found guilty of the offence. (20)

The government was highly successful in providing false information on the Battle of Britain: As A. J. P. Taylor, the author of English History: 1914-1945 (1965) pointed out that the pilots helped them in this: "Pilots on both sides naturally exaggerated their claims in the heat of combat. The British claimed to have destroyed 2,698 German aeroplanes during the battle of Britain and actually destroyed 1,733. The RAF lost 915 aeroplanes. Fighter command had 656 aeroplanes on 10 July, and 655 on 25 September." (21)

During the Blitz the Daily Worker, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was highly critical of the government, especially over its poor performance over the provision of public shelters. It commented: "The shelter policy of the government is not just a history of incompetence and neglect, it is a calculated class policy... A determination not to provide protection because profit is placed before human lives... the bankruptcy of the government's shelter policy is plain for all to see... safe in their own luxury shelters the ruling class must be forced to give way." (22)

American journalists were also critical of the government over this issue. Edward Murrow, of CBS, told the Americans that the old Britain was dying and that ordinary people were asking awkward questions: "Why must there be 800,000 unemployed when we need shelters? Why are new buildings being constructed when the need is that the wreckage of bombed buildings be removed from the streets? What shall we do with victory when it is won? (23) Drew Middleton , another American journalist, also complained about the way the British government controlled the newspapers: "We became aware of the enormous propaganda machine pumping out the government view." (24)

Hugh Cudlipp, the editor of the Sunday Pictorial, was also someone who gave the government a tough time. He had been a strong supporter of Winston Churchill in his campaign against appeasement but was disappointed by his actions once he became prime minister. In an article on 6th October, 1940, Cudlipp praised the appointment of Labour ministers but felt that there were too many elderly members of the Conservative Party in the government: "Party politics of the worst type has been the basis of this Cabinet reconstruction. Failures and mediocrities have been retained because they are Conservatives: competent men have been ignored because they are not eminent in the political Party game." (25)

The following day Churchill held a War Cabinet meeting where he raised the issue of Cudlipp's article and others being published in the left-wing press. Churchill claimed: "The immediate purpose of these articles seemed to be to affect the discipline of the Army, to attempt to shake the stability of the government, and to make trouble between the government and organised labour. In his considered judgment there was far more behind these articles than disgruntlement or frayed nerves. They stood for something most dangerous and sinister, namely, an attempt to bring about a situation in which the country would be ready for a surrender peace." (26)

Churchill asked who owned these newspapers. Sir John Anderson replied: "The Daily Mirror and the Sunday Pictorial were owned by a combine. A large number of shares were held by bank nominees, and it had been possible to establish which individual, if any, exercised the controlling financial interest of the newspaper. It was believed, however, that Mr I. Sieff (Israel Sieff, English businessman and Zionist and later chairman of the British retailer Marks & Spencer) had a large interest in the paper, and that Mr Cecil Harmsworth King (Cecil King, director of both newspapers) was influential in the conduct of the paper." Anderson went on to argue that "it would be wrong to attempt to stop publication of these articles by a criminal prosecution in the Courts." (27)

As Wilfrid Roberts, the Liberal Party MP pointed out: "The Daily Mirror belonged originally to Lord Rothermere. About ten years ago, Lord Rothermere sold his shares, gradually, on the Stock Exchange. They were brought up in small blocks. There is no big, or controlling, group of shares now held by one person. The shares held by nominees represent only between five and ten per cent of the whole shareholding of the paper. In other words, this paper, unlike many others, is run by a board of directors and a chairman. The Daily Mirror has not changed (its policy) in the last five or six years. Its staff has not changed, since the time when the Prime Minister wrote for it." (28)

Clement Attlee offered to speak to H. G. Bartholomew and Cecil King, two of the senior figures at the newspaper group. They met on 12th October, 1940, in an air raid shelter used by government ministers. King recorded in his diary that Attlee told them that the government believed that the newspapers showed a subversive influence which might endanger the nation's war effort. "I asked him to give an example. He said he couldn't think of one... Attlee was critical but so vague and evasive as to be quite meaningless. We got the impression that the fuss was really Churchill's, that Attlee had been turned on to do something he was not really interested in, and had not bothered to read his brief." (29)

Cudlipp upset many people in the Conservative Party with his attacks on the government, and in December, 1940, Quintin Hogg, asked in the House of Commons "Why Mr. Hugh Cudlipp, aged about twenty-seven years and editor of the Sunday Pictorial, had not been called up for military service." (30) Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labour in Churchill's government replied: "The calling up of Mr Cudlipp was deferred on the application of his employers, supported by the Ministry of Information. I understand that this deferment was against the strong desire of Mr Cudlipp himself and, as a result, his employers later withdrew the request for deferment. Arrangements are accordingly being made to post Mr Cudlipp to the Armed Forces." (31)

In an editorial the newspaper accused Westminster politicians of "letting the people down" and concluding that Winston Churchill ought to pack off many of them, including half of his ministers, "for a permanent rest-cure". (32) Churchill immediately demanded that the Home Secretary should suppress the offending newspaper. If the article did not breach existing defence regulations, a new regulation should be introduced. Morrison disagreed and argued that "the democratic principle of freedom for expression of opinion meant taking the risk that harmful opinions may be propagated." (33)

The Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, was growing increasing concerned by the behaviour of the Daily Worker. He was especially worried about its call for a negotiated peace with Adolf Hitler. Later that year the CPGB sponsored and the Daily Worker advertised a series of "People's Conventions" to promote a negotiated peace. Any government wanting to maintain national morale and unity in the darkest days of the Blitz was bound to be disturbed. He therefore decided to use regulation 2D of the Emergency Powers Act ("to systematic publication of matter calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution of the war to a successful issue") and decided to close the newspaper. (34)

On 21st January, 1941, the police took over the newspaper's offices in London and Glasgow. Morrison also took the same action against the journal, The Week, edited by Claud Cockburn. The Labour Party voted overwhelmingly to endorse Morrison's decision. However, in the House of Commons, the left-wing MP, Anueurin Bevan, moved a motion of qualified protest because the newspaper had not been allowed to state its case, and he received the support of half a dozen colleagues. (35)

Morrison justified his decision in An Autobiography published after the war: "The suppression of the Daily Worker was not of course, an attack on freedom... the slavish obedience to the Moscow line was a negation of freedom... the slavish obedience to the Moscow line was a negation of freedom of the printed word. There was evidence that the paper was fomenting unofficial strikes and disputes. The articles in it were insidious enough to cause direct damage to the war effort... Not unexpectedly there was no protest from Russia about the closing down of the Daily Worker. The Soviet Union always admires bold and firm action." (36)

Winston Churchill had appointed Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production in order to guarantee him the support of the Daily Express and the Evening Standard for his government. The two men had disagreed about appeasement but the two men had worked together in the First World War and was aware of his "power to inspire and drive, his ability to get to the heart of a problem at speed, his refusal to despair or admit defeat." Churchill commented: "I needed his vital and vibrant energy." (37)

However, in 1942, Beaverbrook began to plot behind Churchill's back to create a new government controlled by the press lords. As Lance Price pointed out: "No press baron before or since has enjoyed so much real political power as Lord Beaverbrook but still it was not enough... Only in Beaverbrook's wildest dreams could he ever have become prime minister. He was on the way out not up." (38)

On 13th February, 1942, the Daily Mail ran a "violently anti-Churchill, anti-government leader" that had caused fury in Downing Street. Sir Henry Channon, a junior minister in the government, heard talk that Beaverbrook, was planning to overthrow Churchill and put himself at the head of the government. (39) Churchill's wife complained about Beaverbrooks "intrigue and treachery" and suggested "ridding yourself of this microbe" and after his sacking you will "see if the air is not clearer". (40)

Churchill decided to turn to Labour Party ministers for support. He did this by appointing Clement Attlee as Deputy leader of the government and Richard Stafford Cripps as leader of the House of Commons. Beaverbrook vigorously opposed the decision. Churchill now removed Beaverbook from the War Cabinet but still remained in office. Beaverbrook found this unacceptable and resigned from the government on 26th February. Attlee, who had won the power struggle with Beaverbrook, later stated that he "was the only evil man I ever met." (41)

Archibald Rowlands, the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Air Production, was a very close friend of Lord Beaverbrook. He later explained why Beaverbrook left the government: "The real reason for refusing to stay in the War Cabinet was that he judged that the present administration was losing ground in public esteem and was likely to be short-lived - and he did not want to be associated with its collapse." (42)

Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, the Daily Mirror recruited Philip Zec as a cartoonist. Zec's cartoons were an immediate success with the readers. Zec, who was Jewish, felt passionately about the need to defeat Hitler, produced a series of powerful cartoons on the war. As his brother, Donald Zec, pointed out: "He presented Hitler, Goering, and others in the Nazi hierarchy as strutting buffoons. Replacing ridicule with venom, he often drew them in the form of snakes, vultures, toads, or monkeys. Not surprisingly, captured German documents listed Zec's name among those to be arrested immediately England had fallen." (43)

Zec sometimes upset the British government with his cartoons. On 5th March, 1942, the Daily Mirror published a cartoon on the government's decision to increase the price of petrol. The cartoon showed a torpedoed sailor with an oil-smeared face lying on a raft. The journalist, William Connor, provided the caption: "The price of petrol has been increased by one penny. Official." As Angus Calder pointed out: "While many readers seem to have accepted this at its face value as an injunction that they should not complain about shortages and rising prices at such a time as this, Morrison took it to mean that seamen were risking their lives for profiteers at home. Ernest Bevin agreed with him, and Churchill wanted instant suppression of the paper." (44)

The same issue carried an editorial which mocked the army's leaders as "brass buttoned, boneheads, socially prejudiced, arrogant and fussy with a tendency to heart disease, apoplexy, diabetes and high blood-pressure." (45) Winston Churchill believed that the cartoon suggested that the sailor's life had been put at stake to enhance the profits of the petrol companies. "It was, he declared, bound to have a strong effect in deterring seamen from agreeing to serve on oil tankers. The leading article he regarded as a gross and improper libel on the higher officers in the army, and incidentally on the government which appointed them, and one calculated to spread alarm and despair in the ranks and make men unwilling to fight in the belief that they were being led to their deaths by aged and stupid incompetents." (46)

In the House of Commons, Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary, called it a "wicked cartoon" and Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labour, argued that Zec's work was lowering the morale of the armed forces and the general public. By 18th March, 1942, the Law Officers advised Morrison that the cartoon and articles published by the newspaper were infringements of regulation 2D. However, Morrison decided against this after one of his advisers claimed that the newspaper's "criticisms simply reflected real and widespread disenchantment with the government and that it would be very imprudent to hit out at the mouth-piece for genuine popular feeling." (47)

Churchill arranged for MI5 to investigate Zec's background, and although they reported back that he held left-wing opinions, there was no evidence of him being involved in subversive activities. H. G. Bartholomew and Cecil Thomas were ordered to appear before Morrison at the Home Office. Zec's cartoon was described as "worthy of Goebbels at his best" and turning on Thomas, Morrison told him that "only a very unpatriotic editor could pass it for publication". Morrison informed Bartholomew that "only a fool or someone with a diseased mind could be responsible" for allowing the Daily Mirror to publish such material. (48)

When Anueurin Bevan heard that the government was considering closing down the Daily Mirror he forced a debate on the issue in the House of Commons. Some MPs were appalled when Herbert Morrison suggested that the newspaper might be part of a fascist plot to undermine the British Government. Several pointed out that the Daily Mirror had been campaigning against fascism in Europe since the early 1930s. In doing so, it had supported Churchill and Morrison in their struggle against appeasement, the foreign policy of Neville Chamberlains government. (49)

Bevan argued in the debate that: "I do not like the Daily Mirror and I have never liked it. I do not see it very often. I do not like that form of journalism. I do not like the strip-tease artists. If the Daily Mirror depended upon my purchasing it, it would never be sold. But the Daily Mirror has not been warned because people do not like that kind of journalism. It is not because the Home Secretary is aesthetically repelled by it that he warns it... He (Morrison) is the wrong man to be Home Secretary. He has for many years the witch-finder of the Labour Party. He has been the smeller-out of evil spirits in the Labour Party for years. He built up his reputation by selecting people in the Labour Party for expulsion and suppression. He is not a man to be entrusted with these powers because, however suave his utterance, his spirit is really intolerant. I say with all seriousness and earnestness that I am deeply ashamed that a member of the Labour Party should be an instrument of this sort of thing. How can we call on the people of this country and speak about liberty if the Government are doing all they can to undermine it? The Government are seeking to suppress their critics. The only way for the Government to meet their critics is to redress the wrongs from which the people are suffering and to put their policy right." (50)

The majority of MPs were firmly behind Morrison and therefore no vote was taken over the issue. The press, understandably, was least happy with him. The Times, Manchester Guardian, News Chronicle and the Daily Herald objected to the way he had threatened to use defence regulation 2D against government critics. The National Council for Civil Liberties also expressed grave concern and organized a mass protest meeting in London in April. It has been argued that "it was not a happy experience for Morrison, to be pilloried as an enemy of civil liberties when he had fought so long behind the scenes to protect the freedom of the press." (51)

Hugh Cudlipp later record his pleasure when the examination of secret files after the war to see how the actions of the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Pictorial were seen in Nazi Germany. "Philip Zec was a Socialist, and therefore passionately anti-Nazi. He was also a Jew, and passionately anti-Hitler. Helping the enemy? When the German High Command papers, or such as were available, were examined by the Allies after the war, a document was disclosed which reduced to fatuity the view of the British War Cabinet about the Mirror and Pictorial at the end of 1940, the beginning of 1941, and the spring of 1942. The document was an order that all Mirror directors were to be immediately arrested when London was occupied." (52)

After Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) suddenly became enthusiastic supporters of the national war effort and agitation began to permit the Daily Worker newspaper to publish again. Morrison at first resisted, but in August 1942 after pressure at the Labour Party annual conference and the National Executive Council, and with the prospect of censure at the coming Trade Union Congress, he submitted and lifted the ban. (53)

The Daily Mirror continued to criticise the government when its reporters discovered examples of incompetence. Its postbag showed overwhelming support for its campaigning style. Its cartoons, especially, those produced by Philip Zec, concentrated on portraying British civilians, rather than the politicians, as the real heroes and heroines of the war. A cartoon published on 15th July, 1943, reflected this point of view. Christopher Tiffney has pointed out: "While the glory inevitably went to the pilots and aircrew who risked their lives daily against the Luftwaffe and enemy anti-aircraft gunners, the aircraft which they flew and the bombs which they dropped had to be produced in vast quantities under very difficult conditions. The efforts of the men and women who kept the production lines rolling despite the devastating bombing on Britain's manufacturing centres such as Coventry, Bristol and Birmingham, coupled with the privations inflicted by the war on food, fuel and clothing, were nothing short of heroic." (54)

Winston Churchill had a terrible fear that this criticism would have an impact on his popularity and asked Ernest Bevin to put pressure on The Daily Herald to provide support. As the Liberal Party had also joined the coalition and they were asked to work on their friends in the media. Every morning Churchill would read all the daily newspapers. The Daily Telegraph was Churchill's most loyal defender and the prime minister told Robert Barrington-Ward, the editor of The Times, that he read "the papers every morning, The Times, last but one," finishing with the "Telegraph, because I knew that it will be all right!" (55)

The BBC had a monopoly of authorized radio broadcasting in Britain. As Angus Calder has pointed out: "The BBC monopoly make it easy to ensure that only 'safe' people were heard on the air, the use of pre-recording made assurance doubly sure. Scripts of live programmes were vetted by the censors in advance. When live talks were delivered, the announcer would sit in the studio, carefully comparing what the speaker said with the censored script in front of him, with a special switch to hand by which he could cut the speaker off instantly if he stayed. A similar device was used for essentially spontaneous programmes like the Brains Trust; it had the disadvantage that if a trusted performer had suddenly gone berserk and shouted 'Peace at any price!' or 'The Germans are here!', the damage would have been done before the switch could be used. But there were few security leaks in unscripted discussions." (56)

The Government, without taking over the BBC directly, reserved the right to order the BBC to broadcast anything it wanted to be heard. It was also the first war in which it was technically possible for one combatant power to relay its propaganda directly into the homes of the citizens of another. Every twenty-four hours, the Political Warfare Executive broadcast a 160,000 words over the air in 23 languages and nearly a quarter of this went to Germany itself. This propaganda was very successful because of the BBC's reputation for objectivity. (57)

George Orwell worked for the BBC during the Second World War. Between 1941 and 1943 he was a Talks Producer in the Empire Department. This mainly involved producing cultural programmes for intellectuals in India and South-East Asia. According to his biographer, Bernard Crick, it was "essential war work, of a kind, close to propaganda". He arranged for Dylan Thomas and T. S. Eliot to read their poems and E. M. Forster to give a talk on his novels. (58) However, the BBC did stop him from allowing Mulk Raj Anand from giving a talk on the Spanish Civil War. They also complained after Kingsley Martin spoke on the subject of education, because they considered it to be a "left-wing view". (59)

Other contributors included Stephen Spender, Herbert Read, George Woodcock and Cyril Connolly. Orwell felt guilty about his involvement in propaganda. Woodcock later wrote: "In a discussion I had with him at the time he defended his activities by contending that the right kind of man could at least make propaganda a little cleaner than it would otherwise have been, and I know he managed to introduce one or two astonishing items into his broadcasts, but he soon found there was in fact little he could do, and he left the BBC in disgust." (60) Woodcock complained to Orwell that "Even if the broadcasts were intended by him to keep the Fascists out of India, they were also intended by the system to keep India in the clutches of the British nabobs." (61) Michael Shelden claims that Orwell used his experiences at the BBC when he was writing Nineteen Eighty-Four after the war. (62)

In the 1930s the British were well known to be the world's most avid newspaper readers. In 1943, the number of newspapers brought per head of the population was even higher than before the war. It was estimated by the Wartime Social Survey that four men out of five and two women out of three saw a newspaper on any one day. As a result of the shortage of paper, the size of the newspaper, had to be reduced. The typical daily was reduced from between 16-24 to six pages. The "quality" newspapers like The Times and The Telegraph and the Manchester Guardian, were allowed eight pages. (63)

The Manchester Guardian explained its policy during the war: "Rather than produce many editions with few pages, the Manchester Guardian produced fewer editions with as many pages as it could. This meant the paper shrank in size from an average of 16 to between six to eight pages. Although the reduced size meant the paper had less space for advertising, revenue was compensated by increased sales. By 1941 circulation was 60,000, an increase of 10,000 from 1939.... As many Manchester Guardians were sold as could be printed. Subscribers also no longer received a discount - some had been given in the 1930s as part of a readership drive. Despite the reduction in pages, the price remained the same – two pence." (64)

By the end of 1943, well over a third of the nation's nine thousand journalists were in the forces, and a substantial proportion of the rest were engaged on on journalistic work. Most newspapers lost about three-quarters of their staff photographers, and even without the activities of the censorship in this field, they would have been compelled to use more or less identical photographs as only official service photographers were allowed to work in overseas theatres of war. Eventually, journalists were allowed to report from the front-line. Around fifty journalists from Britain and the British Empire were killed or wounded in action during the war. (65)

Several journalists increased their reputation as talented writers during the war. This included Ernie Pyle, Martha Gellhorn, Marguerite Higgins and Alan Moorehead, However, Charles Lynch, a journalist who had been accredited to the British army for the Reuters News Agency, was much more critical of the role that journalists played in the war: "It's humiliating to look back at what we wrote during the war. It was crap - and I don't exclude the Ernie Pyles or the Alan Mooreheads. We were a propaganda arm of our governments. At the start the censors enforced that, but by the end we were our own censors. We were cheerleaders. I suppose there wasn't an alternative at the time. It was total war. But, for God's sake, let's not glorify our role. It wasn't good journalism. It wasn't journalism at all." (66)

The Middle Ages

The Normans

The Tudors

The English Civil War

Industrial Revolution

First World War

Russian Revolution

Nazi Germany

United States: 1920-1945

(1) Winston Churchill, Gathering Storm (1948) page 276

(2) Duke of Windsor, speech in Paris (8th May, 1939)

(3) W. J. West, Truth Betrayed (1987) page 161

(4) Angus Calder, The People's War (1969) page 166

(5) Secret internal government memo entitled The Preservation of Civilian Morale (September, 1939)

(6) Lance Price, Where Power Lies: Prime Ministers v the Media (2010) page 109

(7) John C. Davidson, Memoirs of a Conservative (1970) page 425

(8) Francis Williams, A Prime Minister Remembers (1961) page 5

(9) Magor-General John Hay Beith, The Times (24th October, 1939)

(10) Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker (1982) page 206

(11) A. J. P. Taylor, English History: 1914-1945 (1965) pages 592

(12) The Sunday Dispatch (2nd June, 1940)

(13) The New York Times (1st June, 1940)

(14) Edward Murrow, CBS broadcast (2nd June, 1940)

(15) Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker (1982) page 216

(16) Lance Price, Where Power Lies: Prime Ministers v the Media (2010) page 115

(17) Donald McLachlan, In the Chair: Barrington-Ward of The Times (1971) page 194

(18) Michael Balfour, Propaganda in War: 1939-1945 (1979) page 64

(19) Richard Lucas, World War Magazine (February, 2010)

(20) Angus Calder, The People's War (1969) page 134

(21) A. J. P. Taylor, English History: 1914-1945 (1965) page 608

(22) The Daily Worker (7th September, 1940)

(23) Edward Murrow, CBS broadcast (1st October, 1940)

(24) Drew Middleton, letter to Phillip Knightley (1st November, 1972)

(25) Hugh Cudlipp, Sunday Pictorial (6th October, 1940)

(26) Winston Churchill, Cabinet minutes (7th October, 1940)

(27) Sir John Anderson, Cabinet minutes (7th October, 1940)

(28) Wilfrid Roberts, House of Commons (26th March, 1942)

(29) Cecil King, diary entry (12th October, 1940)

(30) Quintin Hogg, House of Commons (4th December, 1940)

(31) Ernest Bevin, House of Commons (4th December, 1940)

(32) The Sunday Pictorial (26th October 1941)

(33) Herbert Morrison, cabinet meeting 17th November 1941)

(34) Bernard Donoughue & George W. Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (1973) page 298

(35) The Times (29th January, 1941)

(36) Herbert Morrison, An Autobiography (1960) page 225

(37) Anne Chisholm & Michael Davie, Beaverbrook: A Life (1992) page 376

(38) Lance Price, Where Power Lies: Prime Ministers v the Media (2010) page 125

(39) Henry Channon, The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon (1959) page 321

(40) Clementine Churchill, letter to Winston Churchill (19th February, 1942)

(41) Kenneth Harris, Clement Attlee (1995) page 194

(42) Anne Chisholm & Michael Davie, Beaverbrook: A Life (1992) page 430

(43) Donald Zec, Philip Zec : Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (23rd September, 2004)

(44) Angus Calder, The People's War (1969) page 288

(45) The Daily Mirror (5th March, 1942)

(46) Francis Williams, Press, Parliament and the People (1946) page 35

(47) Bernard Donoughue & George W. Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (1973) page 299

(48) Lance Price, Where Power Lies: Prime Ministers v the Media (2010) page 121

(49) Matthew Engel, Tickle the Public: One Hundred Years of the Popular Press (1996) page 167

(50) Aneurin Bevan, House of Commons (26th March, 1942)

(51) Bernard Donoughue & George W. Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (1973) page 300

(52) Hugh Cudlipp, Walking on the Water (1976) page 136

(53) Bernard Donoughue & George W. Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (1973) page 299

(54) Christopher Tiffney, World War II in Cartoons (2009) page 62

(55) Donald Mclaughlin, In the Chair: Barrington-Ward of the Times (1971) page 253

(56) Angus Calder, The People's War (1969) page 503

(57) Sefton Delmer, Black Boomerang (1962) pages 78-81

(58) Bernard Crick, George Orwell: A Life (1980) page 284

(59) Michael Shelden, Orwell: The Authorised Biography (1991) page 374

(60) George Woodcock, The Writer and Politics (1948) pages 116-117

(61) George Woodcock, letter to George Orwell (18th November, 1942)

(62) Michael Shelden, Orwell: The Authorised Biography (1991) page 472

(63) Charles Mitchell, Newspaper Press Directory (1945) page 51

(64) The Guardian (2nd September, 2013)

(65) Angus Calder, The People's War (1969) page 505

(66) Charles Lynch, interviewed by Phillip Knightley (November, 1974)