Tony Blair got a predictably poor reception to his speech yesterday. In it he quoted former prime minister Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin’s oft-cited speech came in the context of a long-running campaign against his leadership of the Conservative Party by Lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere. The two men were owners of the Daily Express and Daily Mail respectively, with 6 million or so readers between them. So how was that speech reported?

Well, the Beaver-mere crusade against Baldwin culminated in a political showdown in the safest Conservative seat in the country – St George’s, Westminster.

On 28 February 1931 the Express declared its own candidate, Sir Ernest Petter, who would run “in opposition to Mr Baldwin’s leadership and policy.” The same day, the official Conservative candidate pulled out. Baldwin told a colleague he was going to resign, but finally an unlikely Baldwinite candidate came forward.

Alfred Duff Cooper knew Beaverbrook. His wife had been both pursued and employed by him. Beaverbrook was godfather to his son.

But the gloves were off. The Express headlined the beginning of his campaign: Mr Duff Cooper’s 44 Listeners: A Meeting Fizzles out at St George’s.

Having found someone to run against the press barons, Baldwin fought on the issue of press dictatorship.

The Express put its response to that claim in a leader column:

The Daily Express and the Daily Mail are trying to persuade Mr Baldwin to retire and make way for his successor.
Q. Is that dictatorship?
A. The Baldwinites say so.
Q. But The Times, Telegraph, and Morning Post say that Mr Baldwin should not resign. Is that dictatorship?
A. No. That is loyalty.

The attacks prompted probably Baldwin’s most famous speech (the last line written, it is said, by Rudyard Kipling, a former friend of Beaverbrook) in which he railed against the Beavermere newspapers as

…engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal wishes, personal likes and personal dislikes of two men. What are their methods? Their methods are direct falsehood, misrepresentation, half-truths, the alteration of a speaker’s meaning by putting sentences apart from their context, suppression and editorial criticism of speeches which are not reported in the paper. … What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, but power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.

As if to confirm every word, the Express splashed next day with SIR ERNEST PETTER’S TRIUMPH – a glowing write-up of their favoured candidate’s rally at a theatre in Victoria.

Baldwin’s speech was carried lower down the page, under the headline Mr Baldwin Denounces His Enemies. The Express’s editor had gone to report the meeting himself with “a mind unprejudiced.” The quotes above were not included in his commentary, although “the political platform allows for over-statement and Mr Baldwin knew what was expected of him.” The innuendo grew thicker: “He [Baldwin] made one smear at Lord Rothermere, however, that simply is not done. When he had made it, he looked furtively at his audience and licked his lips.” By the end of the evening, said the Express, the hall was like a “public morgue.”

Despite the coverage, three days later, Baldwin’s candidate won the seat. Time magazine – an opinionated but disinterested observer – reported it like this.

And thus the threat of press dictatorship passed. Well…