Well, the Daily Mail, a conservative newspaper, is the second most popular newspaper in the UK. The first is the Sun, which is more down market, less literate, but just as reactionary. I think the reason people don't talk about the Sun quite so much is it's more of a porn/celeb comic than a newspaper and they don't want to be seen giving it any credibility. Funny that it's the biggest selling paper, by a huge margin.
You have to go all the way down the list to the 11th and 12th most popular, the Guardian and the Independent, before you find newspapers which are willing to challenge the status quo on drugs (or pretty much any other social issue).
I don't think the politicians take notice of the Mail
per se, I think rather it is symbolic of popular opinion; looking at the circulation statistics suggests that a huge majority of the UK population hold socially reactionary, conservative, views.
(here's the list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation)
Whether it makes sense to use newspaper circulation to judge popular opinion is a different question, but the Sun have a history of aligning themselves with the winners in general elections. And they get (prospective) governments to make concessions to buy their support!
Wikipedia said:
In exchange for Rupert Murdoch's support, Blair agreed not to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism - which John Major had withdrawn the country from in September 1992 after barely two years.
Oh yes, Rupert Murdoch owns the Sun! He also owns the second most popular broadsheet, the Times and the first and fourth best selling Sunday newspapers, the News of the World and the Sunday Times.
In the US, he owns the Wall Street Journal, which is the most popular, and the New York Post. But papers are small fry, lets look at TV: Fox News, a big holding in ITV in the UK, Sky... the list is endless really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation. (I don't really know much about media in the US so I'm not going to attempt any detailed analysis, but he's obviously a big player there, and of course in places like Australia, where News Corporation owned The Australian appears to be the ONLY daily national).
I wouldn't say that his media empire controls minds, exactly, but it definitely stabilises and reinforces culture. OK, it controls minds.
