Daily Mail - Editorial Stance

Editorial Stance

Current columnists

• David Blunkett
• Craig Brown
• Alex Brummer
• Simon Heffer
• Derek Draper
• Sir Max Hastings
• Roy Hattersley, Baron Hattersley
• Liz Jones
• Des Kelly
• Dame Ann Leslie
• Quentin Letts
• Richard Littlejohn
• Edward Lucas
• David Mellor
• Jan Moir
• Bel Mooney
• Abhijit Pandya
• Andrew Pierce
• Melanie Phillips
• Graham Poll
• Norman Tebbit, Baron Tebbit
• Tom Utley
• Michael Winner
• Stephen Wright
• Janet Street-Porter

In the late 1960s, the paper went through a phase of being liberal on social issues like corporal punishment, but soon returned to its traditional conservative line. In Tony Blair's early years as Labour leader and then Prime Minister, the paper wrote positively about him and his reforms of the party.

The editorial stance changed to become critical of Blair in his later years as Prime Minister, and the Mail endorsed the Conservative Party in the 2005 general election.

The paper is generally critical of the BBC, which it says is biased to the left. The Mail has also opposed the growing of genetically modified crops in the United Kingdom, a stance it shares with many of its left-wing critics.

On international affairs, the Mail broke with the establishment media consensus over the 2008 South Ossetia war between Russia and Georgia. The Mail accused the British government of dragging Britain into an unnecessary confrontation with Russia and of hypocrisy regarding its protests over Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia's independence, citing the British government's own recognition of Kosovo's independence from Russia's ally Serbia.

Melanie Philips, once known as a voice for The Guardian and New Statesman, moved to the right in the 1990s and writes for the Daily Mail, covering political and social issues from a conservative perspective. She has defined herself as a liberal who has "been mugged by reality".