The Daily Mail - Friend or Foe?

From humble beginnings in 1896, the Daily Mail has grown from strength to strength becoming the country's second most popular daily rag.  Second only of course to the giant uber-mega-paper, The Sun.  The reason it comes in second?

Too subtle?

The only newspaper still sporting a 25 year-long erection obsession with Princess Diana.  In fact today on its website there is a meaningless comparison of Jennifer Aniston to Princess Diana, simply because they have both, at some points in their lives, worn white skirts.  What I don't understand is why?

Like political parties, newspapers invariably appeal to a certain type of person.  Indeed, sometimes newspapers and political parties align themselves, and sometimes to great effect. In fact, it is pretty well known that on the political/newspaper spectrum, the Daily Mail aligns pretty closely to the Conservative Party.  

A quick google search as to the average Daily Mail reader turns up some gems.  Posted without comment or editorialisation:

Things the Mail and its readers believe are true

Typical Daily Mail headline.

• The Driver Is Always The Victim.
• Everything has the potential to give you cancer.
• Everything has the potential to cure you from cancer.
• Homosexuals all know each other and work together to promote "buggery" and other vices.
• The BBC is run by homosexuals, communists and muslims
• That the UK benefit system is the most generous in the world and the sole reason that anyone migrates to its shores.
• Paying income tax is actually more oppressive than being taken into a cell and beaten up. Inheritance tax is even worse. But still not as bad as the council refusing to collect your bins every four hours.
• The first European settlers to the British Isles never existed.
• It is illegal to fly a Union Jack or celebrate St George's Day without permission from the council. If you do you can be arrested. However, if an immigrant wants to paint a mural of Osama bin Laden with "Death to the Infidels" underneath it they will be given money to do so by the local council.
• In a collision between a speeding car and a pedestrian, it's not the speed which kills, but rather the inability of the driver to control his/her vehicle.
• Speed cameras don't save lives or calm traffic.
• Daily Mail readers are the only species on British soil paying taxes, so forget about tourists, foreign workers/investors and international students.
• The 'Human Rights Act' exists only to furnish convicted child murderers with cushy, Xbox and Plasma-TV filled 'cells'.
• If a white person and a non-white person apply for the same job the State makes the poor employer pick the brown person against his will, even if the brown fella is an unqualified, blind, comatosed ex-street sweeper and the job is Neurosurgery.
• If a crime is committed by an immigrant it is much worse than if the same crime was committed by a native briton. If the immigrant was here illegaly, the severity of the crime is automatically increased tenfold.
• When white people run businesses they are hard-working risk-takers who deserve their riches. When hook-nosed darker races do the same they are scheming, greedy cabalists working together to exploit and extort.
• The term "Paki" is not racist. In particular, it's not racist if the Royal Family say it, it's just "banter".
• Women who have more than one of: a career, children, attractiveness, intelligence, weight loss, weight gain, enjoyment of life; are evil and responsible for the end of society.
• Anyone to the left of Thatcher supports an "open-door immigration policy".
• Any and all editorials or columnists who echo BNP policy and literature are immediately cleared of any association by referring to the BNP as "vile" or "knuckle-dragging yobs". 
• Nick Griffin has been saying this for years. 
• Polluting the environment is necessary and a duty of all human beings.

These last two are particularly funny.  In fact; here's a short video listing all the things which, according to the Daily Mail, can give you cancer: